


The Courtship of Martha's Son

by ssa_archivist



Series: Martha's Son [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-10
Updated: 2003-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-01 08:45:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 61,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/354547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding out about Clark's sexual leaning one night over mashed potatoes and gravy, Martha approaches the only man that she feels can keep her son safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Courtship of Martha's Son

## The Courtship of Martha's Son

by Cheryl Forbes

[]()

* * *

The Courtship of Martha's Son 

"Anyone but _him_!" 

Martha gave her husband a tolerant smile as she lifted the quilt and crawled into bed beside him. With all that had happened in the last few days, she understood how difficult her choice would be for Jonathon to digest. He was only just now coming to terms with Clark's unexpected declaration over dinner the other night. 

"You agreed to the plan," she admonished. 

"Yes, but-" 

"And how necessary it is to protect him." 

"Martha-" 

"Jonathon." She scolded lightly, tucking under his shoulder and wrapping one of his big muscled arms around her. "He has the money and the power. If anyone can keep his secrets safe, it's him." 

"I know, I know but I still don't trust him. I..can't." 

"But you'll try for Clark." It was more a statement than a question. She waited patiently, rubbing her husband's chest through his well worn tee shirt until he accepted the difference. The inevitable surrender came with a whoosh of air. Martha tried not smile. 

"Dammit, woman, you know I will. If this is what the boy wants, this is what the boy gets." 

"Clark doesn't know he wants him yet but he will, given time. They're already best friends. It's a good, solid start." 

"You're sure?" 

"It worked for us, didn't it?" 

Jonathon laughed. It was a pleasant sound and something she'd missed around the Kent household as of late. "I hate to tell you this, Martha but I never wanted to be just your _friend_." 

"But you were until I let you kiss me." 

"Are you saying it's the same for him? That he...oh, damn...wants our son _that_ way?" 

"I think he cares deeply for Clark, Jonathan but values his friendship so much that he'll hide the depths of his feelings to prevent losing him. I didn't choose him based on money alone, you know. I want Clark to be loved as well as protected." 

"By him. A Luthor." Jonathon snorted and Martha hugged him close knowing she'd won him over. He made the same disgruntled sound when she served creamed corn from the can but ate it anyway. 

"He's more than his name." She cooed trying to make it easier for him. "Lex hasn't done anything but good things since he arrived two years ago. Look what he's done for the plant and the community." 

"Yes but is he good enough for our son? Good intentions or not, that's a bit of leap, don't you think? Clark's not a business. He's a boy-" 

"A man." She corrected gently with nothing more than a soft nudge to his ribs. Clark was seventeen and a little more than year over the age of sexual consent in the glorious state of Kansas. There were other laws, specifically one that might cause difficulties later on but she chose not to think about them right now. 

"Fine, okay, a man. Either way I don't like the thought of him being managed by someone who was taught money was the be all and end all of life. My son is not a profit and loss statement, Martha." 

"Lex is not his father and if he has Clark, he never will be. I know it's hard but you'll have to trust them both. We have to do this, Jonathon. The alternate is unthinkable." 

And it was. 

It was more than motherly love that inspired Martha to control her son's love life to what most would consider an unhealthy degree. She was not trying to tie Clark to her apron strings permanently. It was nothing as selfish as that. When the time came, she was ready to let her son go and let him live his life, but she had to do so responsibly. 

Clark was special, different and in the wrong hands, dangerous. 

Love made one do stupid, foolish things and Clark, with his gifts could afford to do neither. He didn't have the same luxury normal adolescents had to make mistakes. 

Martha knew if all those years ago a tall blond and rakishly handsome Jonathon Kent had asked her to do anything, no matter how immoral or illegal, she would have. She loved him that much and without question. It scared her that Clark might find someone that might make him feel the same way. And it scared her more that it might not be someone as good as her husband who would have never dreamed of asking her to cross any lines she didn't feel comfortable with. 

No one could be hurt. No one _must_ be hurt and she would do anything to make sure that didn't happen. She had to have a plan. There was really no choice. 

It might not be the best one and it was a little archaic but she was doing her best. It wasn't like there was a book she could get parenting tips from. Dr Spock didn't have a chapter on raising gay alien sons. She was on her own here. 

Her husband sighed beside her. "So when do we tell him?" 

"Clark? We don't. He deserves romance, Jonathon. He doesn't have to know his marriage was arranged." 

"Christ, Martha! Marriage! Couldn't they live in sin or something less blasphemes? This _is_ Kansas, after all." 

"Tolerance starts at home, Jonathon." 

Another grumble and snort. 

"Did I say I didn't like him?" 

"Yes, now go to sleep." Martha reached over to click off the bedside lamp and then snuggled down. Jonathan made a few more inarticulate sniffs and huffs before settling down with her. 

This end of the discussion was over. Tomorrow she would close the deal. 

* * *

"Mrs Kent." Lex minimized all the windows on his computer, locked it with a password and rose from his chair to greet her properly. She was one of the few people he knew that deserved the courtesy. "Is there something I can do for you?" he asked, genuinely hoping there was. She waved an errant hand as she took the seat on the other side of his desk. 

"Sit, Lex," she said with an air of familiarity that tweaked the corners of his mouth. "And call me Martha. I think we've known one another long enough for you do that." 

"Yes, ma'am." Lex responded with deference. Even with permission, he didn't feel he'd earned this woman's respect enough to call her by her given name. He probably never would. It wasn't a dig. The formidable Mrs Kent didn't think herself above anyone. She was a good person, down to earth, the best. In Lex's opinion, even the President didn't have the right to call her by her first name. "What brings you out to the castle?" he asked, unconsciously smoothing out his clothing with a hand from breast to knee before sitting back down. 

Martha tucked her hair behind her ears and shifted nervously in her chair. Lex felt his palms begin to sweat as she stared steadily at the colored blocks of glass in the windows over his head. A prickly feeling along his spine told him this was not a friendly visit. 

"How do you feel about Clark?" she said abruptly breaking the stillness of the room. 

Damn. No, not friendly at all. This was dangerous territory. 

She was looking at him now, holding him easily with her eyes and waiting. 

"He's my friend." The answer was inadequate but safe. Lex didn't think Martha was prepared to know the true extent of his feelings for her son. Hell, Lex wasn't even sure he was ready. 

"Could he be something...more?" 

There were no definitions needed. They were both adults and Martha Kent nee Clark was originally from Metropolis, where all types of _more_ were practiced. Lex knew her history as well as she most likely knew his. Hence, he supposed, the question. 

"He's not." Lex said coldly, not missing the irony that nothing heated him more than thinking of something _more_ with Clark. But that was not a subject to be discussed even with the boy let alone his mother. It was a secret, a guilty pleasure. Lex only dwelt on it himself when he was alone and with a lot less clothing than he was wearing now. 

Oh fuck, that was a mistake. 

Thinking 'naked" and 'Clark' in the same thought bubble never failed to transpose the blood from his brain to his groin at warp speed. 

Lex carefully folded his hands in his expanding lap and wished he had the foresight to buy a solid teak or mahogany desk instead of embarrassingly transparent glass. When he noticed Martha's knowing stare, Lex brought up his hands quickly and picked up his Monte Blanc, playing with the slim instrument idly. The move came too late, but what the fuck. 

"But you would like him to be more, wouldn't you, Lex?" 

The pen went flying across the room. 

Martha's eyes were soft and held an air of satisfaction Lex didn't understand. It was confusing. The world was upside down. She should be throwing things at him, ranting and not smiling sweetly like he'd just told how much he enjoyed her pies. 

"Mrs Kent," there was no way he could call her Martha now, "Clark and I are simply friends. There is no more and I promise you there won't be. You're son is safe with me. You have nothing to worry about. You have my word I'll never hurt him." 

"I know that, Lex." Again with the sweet, unnerving smile. "That's why I'm here." 

* * *

"Dad!" Clark yelled down from the loft. "I'll be up here if you need me!" 

With a tight lipped smile that hurt Clark to see, his father appeared at the bottom of the stairs. "You're time's your own until your mother gets back from...ah...her appointment." 

"You sure, Dad?" Clark didn't want any extra chores but would do anything to make his father's life easier right now. After all, he was the one that kept coming with ways to make it harder. 

"It's Saturday afternoon. Relax, son." 

"Kay." Clark said to his father's retreating back. The slumped shoulders made him wish for the thousandth time he'd kept his mouth shut about his most recent self discovery. 

It hadn't been like they had forced him to tell. They would probably gotten along quite nicely not knowing their only child was gay but like every other new development about his alien and ever changing body, the news had popped out before Clark had time to think how different this revelation was from the rest. It hadn't been until he'd seen their wide eyes and slack jaws that he realized his mistake. 

But he had wanted to tell, needed to tell. And there really had been no one else. 

The girls he discovered he was not attracted to, his high school buddy or his best friend in the castle were not the ones he wanted to come out to for the first time. With them there would be questions he didn't yet have the answers to. He first needed acceptance and foremost understanding. Clark was scared as hell and had as usual, run to his parents for comfort. 

"Fucking moron!" Clark cursed, flopping down in the hammock. He didn't swear often, well not the really bad ones, but this was a special occasion. 

So the idea of being filled instead of filling turns you on. Did you really need to share that bit of information? And with your parents? Oh, god, you're an idiot Clark Kent. 

In a little more than a year he'll be away at university in Metropolis, god willing. He should have waited until then to find some one to share his sexuality with and until then continue to surf the net one handed. He'd been doing it awhile now. Why couldn't he have done it awhile longer? 

Guilt. 

Honesty was something the Kents had taught him from day one. They also taught him necessity of lying but that was selective and only to the outside world. 

As a family, maybe to make up for the secrets they had no choice but to keep, they tried to keep the lies between them to a minimum. Clark always had an open and honest relationship with his parents. Hiding his sexuality from them hurt. Okay, so he needed the release from his fears too but the overwhelming sense that he was doing something wrong was probably the main reason he blurted out he was gay over mashed potatoes and gravy. 

In retrospect they had taken the news pretty well, no screaming or fainting but he supposed that came from a lifetime of dealing with a 'problem' child. 

Of course, he hadn't gone into to details either. 

Clark hadn't mentioned his late night masturbation sessions while logged on to HOTGUYS.com or the wet dreams of being penetrated anally by something long, hard and hot. He wasn't that much of an idiot. No, he just told them liked boys instead of girls. 

After regaining their composure, his mother had asked the usual questions like are you sure? How long? And did he have a boyfriend? After a yes, a non committal shrug and a definite no to the last inquiry to which his father sighed loudly, things seemed to be okay. Clark had slept better that night than he had in weeks. It was only this afternoon with his mother's conspicuous absence and his father's poorly concealed moping that he had started to regret his admission. 

Maybe he should have had the balls to tell Lex first. 

Coming out while in Smallville was not at the top of his 'to do' list. In fact it didn't make the list at all and revealing himself to his best friend felt a little like doing that. Lex was apart from the family spectrum and a little closer to the real world. 

And like everything else, Lex would have _pushed_. 

It was easier to keep this secret along with all the others. And if that was wimping out...well, so be it. Clark Kent was not ready to take on Lex Luthor. 

Lana, Chloe and especially Pete wouldn't have been fun to come out to either but Lex, oh god Lex, would have been terrifying. 

The younger Luthor _knew_ about sex. He'd probably even been with a guy before and would ask, without pulling punches just the kind of things Clark was a little too embarrassed to talk about right now. 

Just because he was gay didn't mean he forgotten how to blush. Clark was still a seventeen year old boy. Geez, he was blushing now just thinking about Lex and sex. Clark shifted uncomfortably in the hammock. Oh, damn. He was also aroused. 

Pressing the heel of his hand to the base of his cock through his jeans, Clark tried to think non sexy thoughts by calling to mind every nasty mutant he'd ever had the misfortune to meet. If he came in his pants thinking of his best friend, he'd never be able to face him again. 

Not Lex, not Lex, not, oh god, Lex. 

The hard pressing turned into furious rubbing. 

Oh fuck, yes Lex, yes Lex, yes-- 

"Lex!" 

The hammock swung and the support beams creaked as Clark's back arched and he filled his boxers with wet, sticky heat. 

The unexpected force of his orgasm was an embarrassing surprise. He laid staring at the rafters and picking at the fly of his damp jeans trying to make sense of it. 

Before now he had never fantasized about Lex. Never. Lex was attractive, yeah sure, all pale and creamy goodness but he was also just a guy. A guy. A hot guy. A really, really hot guy. Oh, damn. 

Clark had a hard-on for his best friend. Well, wasn't that just the stupidest thing in the world. 

This would be one revelation he would _not_ share with his parents. This would also be one more secret he would not share with Lex. 

* * *

"Let me get this straight, Mrs Kent. You _want_ me to date your son?" That couldn't have been what she asked. 

Martha sat calmly, her jitters apparently gone now she had stated the purpose of her visit. 

"Actually, I'd like you to do a lot more than that, Lex. I'd like you to court him." 

"Court him?" Fuck, this had to be some big cosmic joke and any minute Martha was going to turn into Monty Python's version of God. "Court Clark?" he asked again when it appeared she wasn't going to shape shift any time soon. "You're not serious?" 

Martha chuckled. "It's funny how much you sound like Jonathon at times but yes, I'm dead serious." She sat forward in her chair. "Recently Clark's made his sexual orientation known to both me and his father and as responsible parents we have chosen you as the right person to guide him along this path. And before you ask 'why me', let me say we all know how special Clark is and how easily his abilities can be exploited in the wrong hands." Martha paused and her features soften. "You care for him, Lex. I know it. I feel it. I can't believe you'll hurt my son and I trust you to protect him." 

"I did hit him. That day on the bridge, I ran him over, didn't I?" 

Martha sat back and pulled in on herself in the typical Kent fashion Lex knew so well. 

"I can't answer that. Clark's secrets are his to tell." 

Lex nodded. 

Okay, okay, fair enough. The woman was offering her only son to him, he couldn't expect her to hand over the family secrets as well. Not yet anyway. But there was one thing she might reveal. Lex's throat tightened convulsively. Asking might give away at least one of his secrets but he had to know. 

"Does...does he love me?" 

"Clark? I don't know, dear." Oh Christ, she called him dear. She did know how deeply Lex felt about her son. Her earlier statement wasn't a guess. He wasn't revealing anything new. "You'll have to find that out for yourself." 

"Then why did he agree to this?" Clark was one of those people that led with his heart. It was a beautiful rarity and one that Lex was coming to appreciate. Clark wouldn't agree to something this important for the protection his money could provide alone. "And with his parents of all people?" 

"He didn't. Clark doesn't know I'm here. If he did, I'm sure he'd quite angry that I was trying to arrange his marriage without his permission." 

Lex gasped. Sans Holy Grail deities or not, this still had to be a joke, or maybe some drug induced flashback. 

"You want me to _marry_ your son?" Lex stood and slapped his chest. His white DKNY dress shirt stuck to his skin. "Me? Aren't you afraid of what people will say? Dating a man and coming out of the closet will cause enough of a scandal but marriage to a Luther as well? This is Smallville, Mrs Kent. Not Metropolis." 

"Yes, I do and no, I'm not. If Clark accepts your proposal, then that's the end of it. As a family, we'll deal with whatever prejudices arise. Now please sit down, Lex." 

Lex obeyed the calmly given order, collapsing more that sitting. His head was swimming. 

Fantasy was fast morphing into a sharper reality than he ever could have imagined and the neurons in his brain were having a hard time keeping up. They were flashing chaotically. Lex dug the heels of his hands into his closed eyes trying to calm the fireworks within. He could feel a headache coming on. 

"Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck." Lex moaned while getting himself under control. Eventually he raised his throbbing head. "This is all up to him, isn't it? Clark, I mean." 

"For the most part, yes." Martha smiled kindly and reached out to pat his hand across his desk. "That's where the courting comes in, dear. You have to win his heart for this to work, and to keep him safe. And should you do so, there will be some legalities to be dealt with but I'm sure for you that would be no problem. I'm certain you have influence enough to stretch the Vermont state lines and marriage laws to as far away as Kansas." 

Influence: right. A Luthor: right. He could do this. Lawyers had to be good for something other than getting you out of a bind. Theoretically speaking, they should be able to help you get into one too. 

Putting on a front, Lex stared blandly at his future mother-oh god-in-law and steepled his fingers under his chin. Be the level headed man she came here to see, goddammit! 

"Possibly," he began in his best no nonsense voice. "But it would be tricky. I would need both yours and your husband's consent for the union at the very least to start. And of course sodomy laws here in Kansas would prevent consummation but I suppose that could be achieved while still in Vermont." His mind spun. "Afterwards, it's highly unlikely anyone would dare stop me from fu-" 

Martha cleared her throat, interrupting the indelicate line of thought. "You've thought of this already, haven't you?" 

"What? Marriage?" his bravado faltered an instant. He hadn't, had he? "No, of course not." Lex said firmly after a hesitant pause. "That would be...foolish." 

"Lex, it's okay." 

"It can't be. I'm the bad guy," Lex said calmly before the terrible truth of his words sunk in. Bitter bile along with anger rose abruptly in his throat. "I. Don't. Get. This!" Lex roared, slamming his hands so hard on his desk, his palms stung. Martha didn't flinch. 

"Get what?" she asked calmly, suffering his tantrum stoically. 

Infuriated by her unaffected composure, Lex was up and pacing the room, his arms flailing. "The girl, or rather, the guy, the happy ever after, all of it!" He stopped and stared at Martha. "I'm Lex Luther and you," Lex jabbed a finger at her. "You should be chasing me with a shotgun for even thinking about having sex with your seventeen year old son!" 

"Actually, that would be Jonathon with the shotgun." 

"Mrs Kent!" 

"I'm joking, dear. Jonathon's on board with this, really." 

Lex shuddered. Oh Christ, the Kent family humour was going to be the death of him. 

With a great amount of will, Lex forced the beating of his heart to slow and drop out of stroke range. "Really?" he asked. 

"Okay, so he's not real happy about it but he is trying." 

"No shotguns?" Lex wheezed. 

"No shotguns." 

"And Clark has no idea?" 

"None." Martha got up and stood before him. She was beautiful and sweet, and oh god how he could love this woman if he wasn't already head over heels and totally insane for her son. "Look Lex, nothing has to be decided today. I know my proposal is a bit...unorthodox. Think about and then, come to dinner tomorrow night." 

"With an answer?" 

"No, I don't need an answer. My husband and I have made our intentions known and that's end of our participation. What happens next, if anything, will be between you and Clark." 

"I'll keep that in mind, Mrs Kent." 

"Martha," she corrected. 

"Martha." 

It was easier to say this time. 

* * *

"So, is he going to do it?" 

"Yes, Jonathon." 

"He told you that? Came right out and said it?" 

"He didn't have to." 

* * *

"Need help?" 

Clark yelped and spun on his heels. 

The mashed potatoes in the bowl he was holding lost their fluffy white peaks to spread in a fan over the fine knit of Lex's navy blue pullover. Clark stood a moment admiring the pattern until realizing he was fascinated more by the way the blue molded the older man's pecs than the white. 

"Sorry," he mumbled. Ears burning, Clark carried the bowl over to the kitchen table and turned back to Lex. His friend was by the sink wiping away the mashed potatoes with a dish rag. Clark deliberately stopped himself from becoming too embroiled by the mundane action of Lex cleaning himself and asked, "What are you doing here?" 

"You mother asked me to dinner." 

"She did?" 

"Yes, Clark. I saw her yesterday in passing and she was kind enough to invite me." Lex dropped the rag in the sink and took a step forward. "Should I have said no?" 

"No, of course not but my dad..." Clark let the sentence trail off. Lex knew what his father thought of the young Luther heir. He didn't need reminding. 

If he was offended, Lex didn't show it. He nodded his head thoughtfully and one side of his mouth rose slowly. His whole being seemed to be fixed on nothing but Clark as he strode forward and closed the gap between them. 

It was funny but Clark got the absurd feeling his friend was stalking him in his own kitchen. 

"A necessary evil." Lex said softly while gazing up at him with steel gray eyes that seemed to darken by the second. 

"My Dad's not evil." Clark responded indignantly although there was no force behind the protest. His chest was tight and his breath, uneven. With his alien abilities, it shouldn't happen but it was. He could do nothing but whisper. 

The man before him was intensely powerful. He could feel raw energy coming off him in waves. Clark had never been so aware of how much so before now. He had a vague feeling the spontaneous orgasm in the loft yesterday had something to do with his new found heighten awareness but that was a peripheral thought. He really couldn't think about anything with Lex standing close enough for Clark to smell the citrus tang of his cologne. 

This Lex was more than just his all weather friend and confidante. This was the man the business world feared, a predator, ruthless when he wanted to be. 

Dangerous. 

A heat somewhere between fear and desire pulsed low in Clark's belly. The feeling was new and he liked it. A lot. 

"Mmm. A thorn among roses, then?" 

"Well, he can be a pain sometimes." Did that sound dumb? Oh god, he hoped not. 

"Ah, yes. Are we alone, Clark?" Lex purred, his mouth near enough to Clark's ear he could feel the warmth of his breathing. Clark's eyes fluttered closed. Lex's increased proximity was becoming too much to bear. His skin felt super tight and too hard everywhere. 

"Lex?" he whispered. Clark didn't understand the question. 

"Is it just you and me for dinner tonight, my beautiful farm boy?" 

Beautiful? 

Clark opened his eyes surprised to see Lex was leaning casually back against the kitchen counter again looking cool, calm and totally collected. It wasn't fair. 

"Oh...ah...no," Clark ran a hand through his hair. His fingers came away damp. "Mom's getting peaches from the root cellar and Dad's upstairs changing," he replied, wiping his hands on his jeans and hoping his voice hadn't cracked. 

"Pity." 

Pity? 

* * *

Dinner was more pleasant than he could have imagined. 

After confirming that yes, Clark was attracted to him and he something to work with, Lex thought spending time with the elder Kents would be a torturous, plebian affair. 

It wasn't. 

While Clark was disappointingly silent for most of the meal, Mrs Kent--Martha--conversed quite intelligently regarding matters of business. Lex congratulated his father silently for choosing such an excellent assistant and Mr Kent--still Mr Kent--for his part, said nothing overtly insulting. Lex was almost sorry when the dessert plates were cleared away. 

"Hey, Lex." Clark called, getting up from the table. "Do you want to come up to loft for awhile?" 

To see your etchings? Strip you naked? Suck your cock? Let me fuck you? 

Oh, god, Clark. 

Yes! 

"Thank you, Clark but I have an early meeting tomorrow." Lex said, pushing back his chair and folding his napkin neatly before placing on the table. "I really must get back home to prepare." 

Damn. Why was that so hard to say? 

"Walk me to my car?" Lex offered with a sideways tilt to his head. 

"Okay." 

After saying good night to the Kents who, if the twinned smiles on their faces were any indication, seemed quite pleased with his self control even he wasn't, Lex rose from his chair. Clark gallantly held the screen door open for him as they exited the house through the kitchen. 

Sweet. 

"You should come to dinner more often." Clark said when they reached his car. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his oversized jeans and his cheeks were tinged pink. He was absolutely edible and Lex was already full. "It was nice, Lex." 

"Nice, Clark?" Lex leaned back against the driver's door of the Ferrari. The metal had cooled in the late August night but the heat wave standing in front of him with the pink cheeks offset the chill deliciously. "Is that what you want from me? Nice?" 

The younger man's breath hitched suddenly and his eyes darted up over Lex's head. 

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe." Clark lost interest in whatever he saw in the night sky and stared back down at him with an intensity that would have made Martha Kent proud. "What else is there, Lex?" 

"Good question." Lex said with forced calm, slightly surprised by Clark's directness. "We'll get to that in time." 

"Will it have something to do why you called me beautiful in the kitchen before dinner?" 

"I did that?" Oh, fuck. And here Lex thought he was the one in control. 

"Yeah, you did." 

"And how do you feel about that, Clark?" That's right, Lex. Stall. Get a grip. Stall. 

In the last day Martha Kent had dropped a bomb in his lap and although Lex wasn't totally unhappy with it--he was actually unLexianly giddy the truth be known--he was still leery. Wanting Clark was one thing. He'd done that from the moment he'd risen from the dead, wet and shivering on a river bank but marrying Clark as his mother wanted, was something else all together. He really hadn't, as he told her, thought about it and doing so now made him something he hadn't truly been since he was nine years old. 

Scared. 

Clark shifted back forth on his feet in a 'ah shucks' kind of way and then gazed at him shyly through long, dark lashes. "I liked it." 

And so it begins. 

The bottom of his world had dropped out. 

Lex was doomed. 

He was going to marry Clark Kent. 

* * *

"I liked it." 

Oh, damn. Did he just say that? 

Clark looked closely at his friend. The other man had slumped against the car with his eyes tightly shut. Yep, he did. Well so much for keeping his feelings under his hat. 

"Lex? You okay?" 

Slowly, with elegant precision the older man opened his eyes. "Do you know what that means, Clark? Liking it when another guy says you're beautiful?" 

"We don't have Net Nanny, Lex. I know what it means. And I've been hard all night thinking about what it means coming from you." 

"It means I want to fuck you, Clark." Lex said gruffly. "Can you handle that?" 

"Yes." 

"Just like that? No doubts? No fears?" 

"I'm shaking in my boots, Lex but I'm pretty sure I want... _that_ too. You're sure you don't want to come up to the loft?" 

"Oh, I do, Clark. I most certainly do but not yet. If we're going to do this, we're going to do this right. I'm going to want more." 

"More?" Oh, here it comes. Clark should have known they couldn't have a conversation without Lex bringing up the secrets he was hiding. 

Clark readied himself for confession. He didn't want to fight anymore. This time he would tell if Lex asked him straight out. 

"No quick fucks in the straw, Clark. There are many things we have to do before we get to that point." 

Oh... _oh_. 

"Because you want to make sure I really want it before we get there, right?" He guessed and Lex nodded. 

Sex. 

Lex was talking about sex and not his alien abilities. 

Greatly relieved and no less aroused by the subject, Clark stepped into Lex's air space. "I will, you know," he said breathing in the sweet mixture of coffee and peaches that was Lex exhaling. "Oh god, Lex, I want to feel you, kiss you, have you inside me and, and--" 

"Whoa, Clark. Slow down." Lex pressed him back with the tips of his index fingers to his chest. "I'm quite pleased to know you want me, but will you want your friends knowing that too?" 

Clark blinked. "You want me to come out first? Tell my friends I'm gay before we become lovers?" It had been amazingly easy to tell Lex. He'd just done it without even thinking but his friends... 

"If our relationship changes, Clark, I'm not going to hide it. People are going to _know_ you belong to me. It might be easier for them to hear that from you first before the rumors start." 

"That's blackmail." Clark blurted, regretting the accusation immediately when he saw Lex wince. He raised a hand to Lex's cheek to soften the bite of his words but Lex caught it and held it to his starch stained sweater before Clark's fingers reached their target. Lex squeezed them tight and Clark didn't insult him further with a fake 'ow'. Lex knew enough about his powers to know it didn't hurt. 

"No, it's a commitment...to me." Lex growled. "I'm a Luthor, Clark. I don't take half of anything. If we're going to be together, I'll want it all, in bed and out of it. And if you can't handle that, it's better that we stop this now before either of us gets hurt." 

Lex changed the death grip on his hand into a gentle hold, his thumb drawing soft circles in the well of Clark's palm. Clark watched the feather light caress while he digested what the older man was trying to say. 

Sex and friendship, Lex wanted both. Okay, Clark wanted that too. Lex also wanted to own Clark and again, that was okay. Surprisingly Clark didn't mind that as much as he thought he would. It was strangely titillating thinking about being possessed by the rich and powerful Lex Luthor. 

Being _his_. 

Realizing what it meant, all of it together, Clark closed his fingers over Lex's. The hot, tight feeling rose again. 

"Wow," he breathed. "You want to be my boyfriend. Holding hands and going to football games together and stuff." 

An easy smile formed on Lex's lips. When it went all the way to his steely blue eyes, Clark's stomach did a small flip. "I could live without the football games, Clark but the holding hands part sounds," Lex's mouth twisted. "Nice." 

Clark grinned like a fool. 

Yesterday he would have never imagined standing under the stars, holding hands and joking with Lex about the terms of a sexual relationship. He was in gay alien heaven. Clark glanced down briefly to make sure he wasn't floating. 

"And are you going to ask my parents for permission to court me?" 

"You're making fun of me now." Lex scolded but the reprimand held no weight. The other man was beaming and looking much younger than his twenty three years. 

"No, really," Clark said, not able to let the joke go. He felt too good. "This is Smallville, Lex. We do that around here." 

Lex dropped his hand and his innocence waned, aging him years before Clark's eyes. "I...I've spoken to your parents, Clark or at least your mother. They've accepted my intentions." 

"You're kidding?" Clark choked. His parents knew? Oh, damn. 

"I am not a funny man, Clark." Lex was frowning but ooh, there was a smirk on the edges of his lips just waiting to be exploited. Clark promptly forgot about his parents. He couldn't let the small bit of mirth go to waste. 

"No, but you are a hottie, Lex." 

"A hottie?" 

"And a sexy beast." Clark growled hoping he sounded seductive but just in case he didn't, he placed an arm on either side of Lex's head, resting his hands on the roof of the Ferrari. Lex eyed their placement and then, gave him an amused look. 

"Okay, now that's one I've heard." 

"From who?" 

"Clark..." 

"Hey, I just wanna know who's coming on to my new boyfriend." Boyfriend. Damn. He liked the sound of that. "What's wrong with that?" 

"So you're going to tell your friends you're gay?" 

Whoa-kay, subject change. Might as well get it over with. 

"Well, I was going to wait until I went away to university but I don't think I'll last that long before spontaneously combusting, so yeah, I will." 

"That's a good farm boy." 

"So...ah...Lex. Do I get a reward now?" Clark pressed forward and rubbed his hard cock into Lex's belly. It was blatant but he wasn't getting anywhere with subtle. "Like an incentive or something?" 

"You can kiss me good night." Lex hissed as he hooked his fingers into Clark's belt loops and yanked him closer. Apparently actions spoke louder than words with the normally reserved older man. Clark would have to remember that. 

"Are...are my parent's watching out the window?" he croaked. Lex's cock was burning a brand into his hip, occasionally sliding against Clark's own and making it difficult to speak. 

"I would think so. Does it matter?" 

"No." 

"Good boy." Lex chuckled and nipped a trail down Clark's cheek stopping at his mouth. Nudging it open with his tongue Lex scissored their lips and kissed him tenderly. 

The soft press of lips surprised Clark. He had been unprepared for a touch so gentle. With all the power that Lex possessed, he had expected biting, nipping, a lot of tongue thrusting--a manly kiss, a desperate kiss--something Clark needed. This slow, lazy tasting was driving him nuts. 

Mindful of his strength, Clark angled his head and lunged forward tongue first. He felt a thigh shoved between his legs as Lex parted his lips wider and let him in. 

Oh yeah, this was it. Lex began sucking his tongue obscenely and grinding his thigh into Clark's groin. Oh yeah, this was _fucking it_. This was what Clark thought kissing should be. 

Clark kissed Lex back wildly, doing his best to match the thrusting in his mouth stroke for stroke without slobbering and started to pump against the hard thigh between his legs. It was all so good. 

So good in fact that Clark didn't care if his parent's _were_ watching. He was going to proudly mess his pants doing this totally amazing thing with...oh-my-god...wait for it people-- _Lex_! There were no ifs, ands or buts. He was going to come where he was standing. 

_Had_ to, actually. 

The heat in his belly was focusing, moving downwards and as it was about to leave, needle out and explode, Lex tore his mouth away abruptly. 

"Fuck, Clark. Stop it. Your parents!" 

"...don't care...don't care..." It was too late. " _Lex!_ " 

Burrowing his forehead into Lex's shoulder, Clark trembled as his hips bucked erratically and his cock gushed hot liquid. 

For awhile, he didn't think he was going to stop, that he was going to come against Lex's leg for all of eternity. He was an endless fountain of good feeling. But eventually he did, soaking through the fabric of his cotton shorts, his jeans and on to leave a black, golf ball sized spot on the fabric of Lex's dove gray pants. 

"Sorry." Clark mumbled, eying the stain through lowered lashes. Lex brought his chin up with his fingers. 

"Don't be." Lex kissed the tip of his nose and grinned. "That was one hell of a good night kiss, farm boy." 

"But I wrecked your pants." 

Lex laughed. "Coming so beautifully in my arms more than makes up for the dry cleaning bill, Clark." 

"You don't mind?" 

"I'm...flattered." Lex said softly as he ran his thumb over Clark's bottom lip. "And," Lex huffed before dropping his hand, "You're the one that has to walk past your parents with a wet lap, not me. I only have to go by Enrique with a hard on and since I've moved to Smallville, that sight has lost its novelty a quite some time ago." 

"Oh, damn." Suddenly the damp stickiness in his boxers started to cling uncomfortably in the night air. 

"I tried to warn you." 

Clark rolled his eyes. "Yeah, good job." 

With an unrepented smirk, Lex twisted him around and shoved him towards the house. "Grab a shower and go to bed, Clark. I'll call you tomorrow to ask you out formally." 

Clark gave him a wide smile over his shoulder, anything less was impossible at this point, pulled his tee shirt out and over the front of his jeans and then turned to walk the parental gauntlet. 

* * *

Enrique was not going to get a show tonight. 

The musky smell of Clark's semen on his pant leg was permeating the small compartment of the Ferrari and aggravating the painful state the sloppy, virgin kiss had left him in. His hard on was practically bumping the steering wheel as he drove. Lex wasn't going to make it home before ruining a very fine pair of trousers. 

Turning the wheel hard to the right, Lex parked the car on the side of the road at a careless angle and quickly killed the engine. Not wanting to be front page fodder for The Inquisitor, he didn't bother with the hazard lights. Getting rear ended was preferable to Officer Bob catching him with his hands in his lap jerking off. 

The Ferrari had barely stopped its low thrumming before Lex was biting off his driving gloves and fumbling with the fastenings of his trousers. While cursing loudly the torturously high quality of Helmut Lang's workmanship, the zipper screeched and eventually came down. 

Simultaneously licking the palm of his left, Lex used his right hand to yank down his black silk boxers and shimmy his pants mid thigh. He hissed when his fingers finally wrapped around the shaft of his cock. The overstrained organ was throbbing painfully like a toothache. 

One pump, two and it was over. He was coming. He'd never been this easy. 

"Oh, shit...Clark!" he cursed as a stream semen sprayed up towards the direction of his chin. After few more softer strokes to draw out the feeling, Lex sagged against the steering wheel, panting. He was pleasantly wasted. 

Lex had played it cool around Clark but the evidence that he'd been just as strongly affected by their touching was now overlaying the mash potatoes from this evening's supper in a questionably artistic smatter. The expensive blue sweater was unsalvageable but he'll probably keep it somewhere safe where the servants can't take it for cleaning. 

"Oh, isn't that a supremely sappy idea." 

Damn him, Clark Kent was making him into a romantic. Not necessarily a bad thing but he did miss the loss of identity in a fleeting kind of way. Lex laughed, the sound was loud in the close confines of the car. 

Billionaire playboy brought to his knees by Kansas farm boy, a special boy mind you with very intriguing secrets but a boy none the less. 

Christ. 

Clark was only seventeen years old _and_ a virgin. He shouldn't be able to bring down a man that most of the debutantes in the western hemisphere hadn't been able to bag. Lionel would laugh if he saw him now. 

Lionel. 

Unless one of Clark's mutant abilities, other than being inhumanly strong, Lex had seen the pictures before he'd destroyed them, was the ability to procreate, his father was going to be royally pissed when he found out the Luther line stopped with his son. 

Demanding full disclosure from Clark went both ways. He saw that now but at the time it was a way of testing Clark's resolve and he admitted, a form of insurance, a way of keeping him Lex supposed. 

Clark was still one step behind. He had no choice. 

Lex had experienced lust and at some undistinguishable point, had gone on to love. Asking Clark to come out of the closet in a town where the only gay man he knew was Lex, was a way of guaranteeing the beautiful young farm boy would have no one else to turn to when he made the eventual, deeper transition. It was solid planning, good forecasting, decidedly calculating _and_ \--Lex laughed again--had quite efficiently turned around to bite him in the ass. 

The editorial vengeance of The Daily Planet, The Inquisitor, The Smallville Ledger and even The Torch didn't frighten him nearly as much as Lionel Luther's real and potentially lethal wrath. Wrapped up in the desperation of making his romantic dreams come true, Lex had forgotten the nightmare of his father. 

He would have to be careful. He would have to be cunning. He would have to ruthless. 

To keep Clark safe, he would have to be the son his father wanted him to be and the man Jonathon Kent despised. 

He would have to be a Luthor. 

* * *

"They were _kissing_ , Martha." 

"I think they were doing a little more than that but yes, Jonathon. Lex and Clark were kissing." 

"That's a little fast, don't you think? I mean, we only gave him permission to court our son yesterday." 

"Did you see the smile on Clark's face when he came in?" 

"Barely. He was past me and up the stairs before I got a good look." 

"He's happy Jonathon. I think we made the right choice." 

"Well, if he's happy..." 

"Exactly. Now go to sleep, dear." 

"Yes, ma'am." 

"Good boy." 

* * *

"Tell me again why my parents came along on our first date, Lex." 

"Because I want people to see me interacting with your family, Clark. It's good for them to see us together in a nice, wholesome setting." 

"To get them in right mind set about us. Yeah, I get it but can't we ditch the old folks for awhile and go necking behind the cattle sheds?" 

"Luthors don't 'neck', Clark." 

"Okay, I'm open for suggestions." 

"I think your father would like to check out the John Deere exhibit..." 

"Don't even think about buying him a new tractor, Lex. He's just starting to tolerate you." 

"Killjoy." 

"Well, if it will make you feel any better, you can buy me a Pogo stick with lots of ketchup. The booth's only here once a year and it's one of my favorite things about the Labor Day fair." 

"Is food the only way to your heart, Clark?" 

"No, there's another way but you already said no." 

After feeding his growing boyfriend, they strolled the exhibits behind the elder Kents. Lex did not buy Clark's father any new farm equipment but he did take the salesman's card for future reference just in case. Even in this day and age, there was such a thing as a dowry. 

There were the usual sundry of fair rides but Lex flat out refused to ride any of them telling Clark they were a lawsuit waiting to happen. Clark did managed however, to get him to go through a walk through haunted house although Lex suspected his main intention was to get him alone in the dark for a quick kiss. Lex hadn't needed all that much convincing and both of them had exited grinning like fools. Martha Kent had looked extraordinarily pleased when she asked them if they enjoyed the ride. Lex had surprised himself by blushing. 

The main event, as the sun went down and colored lights lit up the fairway, was a concert in the band shell. Clark and Lex had their own blanket a discreet distance away from Martha and Jonathon on the soft grass. 

While waiting for the band to start playing, they sat drinking iced tea out of plastic cups and talking about the demise of summer. The school year started in a few days and Clark was excited about being a senior. Lex fell in love with him all over again watching his eyes sparkle and his big hands dance through the air as he spoke. 

It had been a good day and Lex hoped, an ever better night. 

* * *

"Do you want to hold hands?" 

"Are you sure, Clark? Chloe's sitting just over there. It's dark, but she still might see." 

"I want to touch you, Lex and she's mostly watching the band anyway." 

"She's not the only one out here." 

"Well, speaking of 'out'..." 

"You don't have to do this tonight, Clark. The seed we planted today has barely had time to germinate." 

"I promise not kiss you, then. However, all bets are off during the fireworks later." 

Not waiting for an answer, Clark reached over and took Lex's hand into his lap. The look of pride in the older man's eyes as he wound their fingers together made Clark's mist. He had to look away quickly before he broke his no kissing vow. Lex squeezed his fingers gently and together they watched the band in silence. 

* * *

"Martha, can you see that? They're holding hands." 

"So are we, Jonathon." 

"Yeah, but..." 

"It's dark. No one can tell unless they're being nosy or overprotective." 

"Oh hell, Martha." 

"Watch the band, dear." 

* * *

"Clark!" 

In tandem he and Clark turned to see Lana, Chloe and Pete strolling towards them. Fuck. They had lost the parents only to be found by the friends. 

Clark greeted them collectively with a 'hey, guys' while Lex politely asked each of them if they were enjoying the fair. He wasn't happy they were here, Lex was looking forward to a certain promised kiss but he wasn't foolish enough to let it show. These were Clark's peers. Community acceptance of their relationship would come initially through them. 

As a group they made their way to the fallowed field next to the fairgrounds where the fireworks would be set off. Hoping to get a gratuitous look at Clark's ass, Lex hung back a few feet. Unfortunately, his lecherous plans were derailed by Chloe Sullivan, who matched her pace with his. 

"Did you like the concert, Lex?" 

"It wasn't the Metropolis Philharmonic but it did have its merits." 

"Yeah, I could see that. You and Clark were sitting awfully close." 

"Fishing for a story, Miss Sullivan? I thought The Torch didn't officially reopen until Tuesday." 

"No, not really. I was just wondering how Clark's 'How I Spent My Summer Vacation' essay would read. You spend a lot of time with him, don't you?" 

"We enjoy each other's company immensely, Miss Sullivan." Lex gave her a pointed look. "Is that a problem?" 

"Not if we were in Metropolis." 

Any retort Lex would have liked to make was cut off by their arrival in the field. Lex stopped by the wooded edge and watched as the inquisitive Miss Sullivan joined up with her friends. After a few moments she merged into the crowd with Lana and Pete in tow. With a smile, Clark walked back to where he was standing in the shadows. 

"Where are they off to?" Lex asked when Clark was near enough. 

"The Breaks. It's a bunch of large rocks with lots of flat spots for sitting." 

"Aren't we joining them?" 

"Naw, it's pretty dirty. Chloe suggested I take you over the other side of the field. There's a fence we can use as bench to watch the light show." 

Lex made a mental note to give Gabe Sullivan a raise. 

* * *

"I don't see a fence here, Clark." 

"Of course not, Lex. They don't put fences in the woods. Nothing to keep in." 

"Then why--oomph!" 

Using his greater strength but not too much, Clark pinned Lex to the closest tree and proceeded to kiss him senseless. Like the genius he was, Lex caught on quickly, pulling him tight and raking his hands under the back of Clark's sweatshirt. 

After the initial rush, the kissing slowed down to a more leisurely pace. Clark allowed Lex a breath and Lex took advantage of the break by moving his lips down the column of Clark's throat. Clark threw his head back and hips forward. 

"Oh, geez, Lex...that's good." 

"Yes, it is. You taste like honey and sunshine, Clark. I want to lick you all over." 

Pulling the front of his shirt up, Lex dragged his tongue over Clark's exposed chest. When teeth scraped a nipple, Clark cried out. 

" _Oh, god!_ " 

"Hush, sunshine. You don't want people running in here seeing what I'm going to do next." 

Next? 

Clark's eyes went wide when Lex dropped to his knees and began to mouth the head of Clark's erection through the denim of his jeans. There was a dark spot just below the brass button and Lex paid special attention to it. He was gasping by the time the older man effortlessly opened his fly, pushed down his boxers and brought his aching erection out into the cool night air. 

"Fuck you're big, Clark." Lex licked the slit of his cock. Clark stared in fascination as the drops of pre-come on its tip were collected on Lex's swirling pink tongue. It was more erotic than anything he'd ever seen on the Internet. Lex sat back on his heels and smiled up at him. "And sweet." 

"Please...Lex..." Clark pumped his hips, the wet tip of his cock narrowly missing the older man's cheek. 

"Hold on to the tree, Clark. I don't want you falling me when you come." 

Clark's brain hardly had time to process Lex's warning, before he was swallowed whole. He grabbed the tree quickly and tried hard not to close his eyes in pleasure. This was his first blow job and he wanted to watch. 

The heat of Lex's mouth was wonderful. Because of his alien nature, he couldn't be damaged but Clark felt like he was being branded, marked. Every time Lex's head pulled back, Clark was sure he saw burns but it was only the red flush of blood as his cock filled further. When Lex started humming as he sucked, Clark caught fire all over. He reluctantly slammed his eyes shut so nothing else would. 

"Lex...oh god...Lex...I'm going to..." 

As his orgasm started to pulse out of him, Clark half heartedly tried to shift his hips back but Lex's fingers held him firm. Purring now, the older man drank him in until he had nothing left to give. It was a fantastic feeling, coming in his boyfriend's mouth. Without checking, Clark knew instinctively that there was at least an inch between his boot soles and the leaf littered ground. 

When the night air once again chilled him, Clark opened his eyes to see that had Lex fallen to the side on all fours. 

Heaven met earth abruptly. 

For a moment Clark thought Lex was retching until he saw the flurry of activity at the fly of his tailored pants and a stream of white hitting the forest floor soon after. 

Lex had come from making him come. Cool. 

Prying his fingers out of the trunk of the tree, Clark zipped himself up and kneeled down by his convulsing boyfriend. 

"You okay?" 

"Dammit all to hell, Clark." Lex swore. "I hate it when you make me do that." His head was hanging loosely between his outstretched arms. 

"Have an orgasm?" Clark asked confused. He had quite liked his. 

Lex moaned. "No, go off like a fucking teenager." 

"Sorry?" 

Lex peered up at him smiling. "Don't worry about it. I'll deal." 

Smiling back, Clark held out his hand and helped him up. Lex did up his pants and then brushed the knees. There was a drop of semen on the hem of flustered man's black sweater and without thinking twice, Clark used his index finger to wipe it off. 

Faster than someone who was born on this planet should have be able, Lex snatched his wrist and held the white coated finger to Clark's lips. 

"Taste me, Clark." Lex whispered, his voice low and throaty. 

Clark did. 

It wasn't sweet like Lex said his was, it was actually a little bitter but it was okay because it was well...Lex. Clark dutifully sucked his finger clean before lowering it. Watching intently, Lex's silver eyes glittered in the dark. 

"Jesus, fucking Christ, Clark. Now kiss me." 

And Clark did that too. 

As soon as their lips touched, Lex's tongue was in his mouth mixing their fluids and blending them into one. This time there was no question. It tasted great. They tasted great. Clark flicked his own tongue into Lex's mouth to show his appreciation and Lex's hugged him tighter in response. Finally so they could breathe, although that wasn't really a concern for Clark, Lex broke the kiss and pressed their foreheads together. 

"You're incredible, Clark. Do you know that? You drive me insane. You're so fucking incredible and I...I care for you so fucking much." 

And I think I'm in love with you, Clark wanted to say but didn't want to sound like a stupid kid after his first blow job. 

"Me too," he said instead. 

Lex grinned and hooked an arm around his waist. "How's about we go see some fireworks?" 

"Yeah," Clark agreed. 

It would be the perfect ending to a perfect first date. 

* * *

A low rumble interrupted Lex's thoughts. He looked up from his computer screen over to where Clark was sprawled reading his latest homework assignment on the couch. School had started two weeks ago and the scholastic deluge had begun. 

"Hungry, Clark?" 

"Sort of." 

"You know where the kitchen is. Help yourself." 

"Want anything?" 

"Maybe after I'm done with this." 

"Work?" 

"Working for pleasure would be more precise." 

"Okay, that sounds interesting. What is it?" 

"When I'm done, you'll know." 

"Can't I know now?" 

"Go eat, Clark." 

* * *

"You're going to pay Clark's way into everything?" Clark's father roared, slamming down his Personal Digital Assistant or 'PDA' on the kitchen table. When Lex compiled this report, he knew instinctively that particular recommendation would bother the proud, older man. 

"Yes, Mr Kent that's what rich boyfriends do." Lex said evenly, sticking to his guns. If Clark's 'coming out' was to go smoothly, certain guidelines needed to be followed. Appearance was everything. "I'll also buy his coffees, lunch, dinner, whatever when we're out together. And he will see only me. No girlfriends. Not even rumored ones." 

"What about social events like a school dance, for instance?" That was from Martha. She was scrolling through the information on her PDA thoughtfully. Lex had provided one of the small hand held devices for each of them. 

"That's trickier in the early stages. We don't want to shock the good citizens of Smallville by having Clark bring me to his senior prom. But I suppose I could volunteer to be a chaperone to gain attendance. If the event is in Metropolis, it won't be a problem. I'll display Clark openly as my date." 

"You don't want me to go out after dark!" Clark squeaked holding up his PDA to Lex's face. 

And here was Clark's sore point. 

"Only for your own good, Clark. I don't want you to become a victim of gay bashing." Lex heard Martha gasp. "On the farm here, no problem but be careful while in town after dark." 

"Lex, I can take care of myself." Clark said while giving him a steady gaze. There was information being offered in those big doe eyes but now was not the time to partake of it. Knowing Clark's secrets were secondary to keeping him safe. 

"Yes, maybe." Lex allowed. "But I'd rather you avoid violent confrontations. If you find yourself involved in one, do your best to walk away. Don't rise to insults." 

"That sounds like something Dad would say." 

Lex looked at Mr Kent and gave him a nod of genuine respect. "It's good advice. Follow it." 

"Chloe knows?" Martha asked. It was Clark who answered. 

"Yeah, Lex says since Labor Day but I haven't talked to her about yet. I will though. Soon. And I'll ask her to help me with Pete and Lana." 

"Good idea, Clark." Lex reached across the table a briefly squeezed the hand that wasn't holding a PDA. He didn't touch Clark often in front of his parents but the younger man's participation in this brain storming session pleased him. After reluctantly pulling back his hand, Lex picked up his own PDA. 

"There's one factor we haven't addressed yet and it's a big one," he said. 

"Lionel Luthor." Mr Kent mouthed it like was a curse. It was. 

"Yes. My father won't be pleased I'm dating a male high school student but not because of public embarrassment. Luthors don't care what others think--" 

"He wants grandchildren." Martha said cutting him off. "And adoptive ones are not an option." 

"Yes, ma'am. That's correct. The bloodline must be continued to assure immortality." 

"What about you, Lex? Do you want children?" 

"Mom!" 

Unaware how in depth the agreement between Lex and his parents was, Clark was understandably outraged. Clark didn't know Lex intended to propose and make him his life. Talking about children most likely seemed strange to the young man at this point. Lex couldn't look at him without revealing how at ease he was with the topic, so he focused on his mother. 

"Honestly, Mrs Kent, I haven't gotten that far in my thought process but I can tell you I don't have a problem with adoption." 

"Good enough, Lex. Now back to Lionel. What can he do?" 

"A number of things. One, he can try to attack me financially but that would be the most ineffective. With the creation of LexCorp, I have become financially independent. There have been some set backs, but I've learned from them. I'm stronger now. He can't easily take my money away." 

"I have a rich boyfriend. Cool." 

"From anyone else, Clark, that statement would have me running for the hills but yes, you have a _very_ rich boyfriend." 

"The second item you have listed is 'public embarrassment'." Mr Kent said pointing at his PDA where it remained on the table like a pariah. "I thought you said that didn't matter to Luthors." 

"It doesn't. I can take it as well as I give it but that does not extend to the people I care about. Lionel may try using blackmail, possibly in the form of compromising photographs to force me into stop seeing Clark and that only hurts me, through him. I will not have Clark's reputation sullied." 

"So you won't touch my boy." Mr Kent said with a snort of satisfaction. Lex hated to burst his bubble...well, perhaps 'hate' was too strong a word. 

"I'm sorry to offend your sensibilities, Mr Kent but I _have_ touched your boy and will continue to do so. Whether you care for it or not, he _is_ my lover." Out of the corner of his eye, Lex could see Clark squirming his chair. "But I do promise to be discreet and treat him with respect." 

"Fine. I suppose I can't ask much more than that." 

"But that doesn't mean Lionel won't obtain pictures." Lex took a breath. He was about to unleash a side of his personality he fought against every day and was uncomfortable displaying in front the Kents. "If he does, I'll deal with him in kind. I have access to the same resources he does and I'm not above using them to protect my own. Lionel taught me well." Lex finished, hoping it was enough to belay their fears without completely repulsing them. 

Lex didn't like acting a Luther around these good people. It was bad form. 

"We understand, dear." Martha said gently. 

"Thank you." Lex replied softly, grateful of her generosity of spirit but not surprised by it. He took a slow peek at Clark, instantly terrified of what he might see. 

The younger man was looking at him across the table with obvious sympathy. Big eyes watery and a silly, lopsided grin on his over ripe mouth. Oh god, how he loved this boy. It was appallingly frightening how much. Lex swallowed hard and managed a tight smile in return. 

"Is that it?" Clark asked, impatiently. He was taking it well, but it was obvious to Lex the younger man had reached his limit of people picking apart his love life. 

"Other than the police being called in, the Smallville chamber of commerce revoking your father's business license or the odd brick or two being thrown through your front window, I suppose it is." 

"You don't paint a very pretty picture, Lex." Martha said, rising from the table. 

"I know, ma'am," Lex tore his eyes from the breath taking image she called her son to give her a grave look. "But I believe in being prepared." 

"Well, we are that. Now, who's up for pie?" 

* * *

"You're my knight in shining armor, Lex." 

"No, I'm more like Darth Vader who knows how to wield the Force to his advantage." 

Clark laughed. Lex was such a sci-fi geek sometimes. Good thing. Very good thing. 

"Yeah, well, either way I'm glad you're on my side." 

After his mom's apple pie, Clark dragged Lex up to the loft to cheer him up. Lex got snarky when talking about his father, the senior Luthor and Clark was resolved to break him of his foul mood. He slipped off the couch to kneel at Lex's feet. 

"Lex?" 

Lex pinched the bridge of his nose and snapped, "What is it, Clark?" 

"Can I suck your cock?" 

"Huh?" Lex stared down him. His finely delineated eyebrows, the colour of ripened wheat were arched and his coral pink was mouth was slightly open, the fuller bottom lip parted a little from the jagged line of the upper. 

It was a good look for him, Clark mused. It brought the older man down to his level. Lex looked impossibly young when he was bewildered and Clark liked that. It made him feel strong in a way his alien powers didn't. 

Placing his hands on the tops Lex's thighs, Clark parted his knees with a not so gentle push and moved between them. "Can. I. Suck. Your. Cock?" He repeated slowly. 

For a long moment Lex searched his face gently with his eyes. Simmering with the urge to just take what he wanted, Clark waited quietly and suffered the without batting an eye. 

Finally Lex brought up a hand to stroke his cheek and whispered, "Yes." 

Permission at last. Oh, god. 

In the last couple of weeks Lex had blown him five times, yes he remembered exactly but had not allowed Clark to return the favour. It was milestone in their relationship, Clark knew and only hoped he could mark it properly. 

With fingers that felt like over stuffed sausages, he undid the fly of Lex's pants as Lex continued to watch him silently. When they were opened, Clark got his first real look of his boyfriend's genitals. He gasped in pleasant surprise. 

Lex Luthor had _hair_. 

There wasn't a lot of it but there was enough to dust a fine copper mist along the base of a long, sturdy shaft. Beyond that, Lex was neatly cut and the head of his cock was appropriately tinted a deep royal purple. Clark found the whole package almost pretty. He smiled up at Lex. 

"It's beautiful." 

"Thank you." Lex replied in the same hushed tone he'd used earlier. 

Putting his desire on the back burner, Clark took a moment to contemplate the man's bearing. This was a bookmark in their life after all. He wanted to remember it. 

Lex's eyes and mouth where soft, his forehead smooth and his shoulders, rounded. The older man looked so exquisitely serene and trusting, Clark was moved. Lex didn't give this away to anybody and Clark knew it. Something inside him broke. Changed. Became stronger. 

"All of you," he added in his own breathy whisper. "You're beautiful all over, Lex." 

This time he got a slight smile in thank you and another light caress to his cheek. Bursting with happiness, Clark leaned into the delicate brush of fingers on his way down to Lex's lap. 

Trying to recall how Lex did this to him, Clark covered his teeth with his lips and sucked in the crest of Lex's penis into his mouth. The tang of pre-come dragged across his taste buds as he moved downwards. He stopped and breathed deeply through his nose when soft red hair tickled its tip. Lex moaned and threaded his fingers into Clark's hair. 

"Hold still, sunshine." 

Thankful of the direction, Clark looked up at Lex and hummed what he hoped would be taken for assent. 

"Jesus..." Lex hissed and then started to pull his cock out of Clark's mouth. 

For a moment Clark thought Lex was going to leave him entirely and disappointment was fast becoming a very tangible thing until he was once again filled. 

Oh, now he got it. Lex was going to fuck his mouth. Okay, his ego and his super powers could handle that. 

Clark hunched further forward to better line up Lex's cock with his throat. The movement garnered another noisy thrust from his boyfriend. And another. Soon the hay loft was filled with Lex's low throaty growling and the creaking of rusty couch springs. The unorthodox song brought Clark's own cock to life. It was hard and pulsing in his jeans. 

"Clark...oh, fuck...Clark...do you want to swallow? Please...oh fuck...fuck...fuck...tell me you want to swallow. Please!" 

Not sure how to answer yes with his mouth full, Clark placed his hands over Lex's where they cradled his head and prayed he got the message. He did. After a few more long thrusts, Lex came with a keening wail in his mouth. 

Super powers or not, Clark still had a gag reflux of sorts. The incessant pounding hadn't sparked it but the tickling sensation of Lex shooting warm semen down his throat did. Clark only managed a few deep swallows before pulling back to suckle the rest of Lex's come from the end of his sputtering cock. By the tightening of the fingers in his hair, it seemed he wasn't being blamed for his failing. 

"Oh, my god!" came a high pitched scream too coherent to be Lex. His boyfriend _was_ screaming but he wasn't forming words. 

Once again utilizing his alien biology, Clark released the softening cock in his mouth, wiped his chin clean and faster than the human eye could register, stood in front of Lex, blocking him from their unexpected visitor's view like a pillar. 

"Chloe!" Clark exclaimed to her back, incredibly and deeply mortified. In modesty, she must have turned around the moment she realized what was happening in the loft but he still wondered how much she seen. 

"Are you done, guys?" 

"I am." Lex reported from behind him. He peered back over his shoulder to see Lex doing up his zipper and smiling smugly. Clark gave him a sour look before turning back to Chloe. 

"It's okay now, Chloe. You can turn around." 

Chloe was smiling brightly when she did. "Well, that was one hell of a confirmation." Her eyes lowered and her head tilted to the side. "Oh, Clark." 

Confused, Clark followed her line of sight. It ended at the crotch of his jeans where his erection was clearly delineated in faded denim. Embarrassed, Clark spun and started doing up the lower buttons of his flannel shirt. Lex was laughing. 

"You're evil." Clark hissed down at him. It didn't matter much to him now that Lex was in a better mood. 

"I know." Lex agreed with a smirk and hooked a hand around Clark's bicep, tugging him down beside him on the couch. "Please, Miss Sullivan, pull up a bail of hay." 

"Straw." Clark corrected through clenched teeth. 

"Straw." Lex acceded with a graceful nod of his head. 

Bouncing across the wooden floor of the loft like an excited puppy, Chloe took a seat. The eager look in her eyes chilled Clark and wilted his erection. He huddled against Lex hoping he would do most of the talking. 

"So, you're a couple now, huh." 

Totally composed and looking more together than someone who had just screamed out an orgasm at the top of his lungs had the right to be, Lex answered without the tiniest hitch in his voice. "Yes, although it's generally not known for obvious reasons. Besides yourself, Clark's parents are the only others aware of the fact." 

"Wow. They know about the sex?" 

A dry nod and the tiniest of smiles. "They haven't had a private viewing as you have, Miss Sullivan but yes, they do." 

Chloe grinned and clapped her hands. "Lucky me." 

"Chloe!" 

"Oh come on, Clark." She tossed her blond head at him. Pert was fast becoming annoying. "Guy on guy sex is totally hot." 

"Yeah, for the guys." Clark snorted and then blushed. He was getting better at not doing that at every turn but geez, this _was_ Chloe. 

"And for the girls. Especially when they look as good as you two. Haven't you ever heard of slash, Clark? It's written and read mostly by women." 

"Are you telling me watching me have sex with my boyfriend turns you on? Ew, Chloe!" 

"Get with it, Clark." Chloe mooned at him and then halted. "Boyfriend? This is really real, isn't it?" 

"Very." Lex said succinctly while reaching over, taking Clark's hand and giving the back of the knuckles a soft kiss before weaving their fingers together and placing the enfolded possession in the lap of his expensive trousers. "Although coming out may present a problem here in Smallville," he said finishing the possessive display and focusing his cool stare on their excited inquisitor. 

"I can see that," Chloe said in a rush, her eyes brighter than they were before. "But it might not be so bad as you think. I mean, people see you two together all the time. It's always Lex and Clark did this, Clark and Lex did that. How much of a leap can it be to find out you're lovers?" 

"It's the reaction after the fact we're worried about." 

"Do you really care? If you love each other, what does it matter what anyone else thinks?" 

Clark felt Lex stiffen at the mention of the "L" word but the older man relaxed again before Clark had time to wonder about it. 

"That's an attitude I can afford, Miss Sullivan. Clark cannot." 

"Because you're the big bad city slicker and he's the small town boy? Oh, please. That one's been flogged to death, Lex." 

Clark glanced over Lex. He looked a little bit surprised. 

"So you think we should just do it?" Clark asked his bubbly friend. 

"Be subtle, no make sessions in the Talon or anything but, yeah. I'll help by running a little interference. You know, talk about how cool you two are together. That sort of thing." 

"No articles in the Torch?" Lex asked. 

"Tempting but that can wait, provided you give me an exclusive once you're all the way out of the closet." 

"I don't do interviews and neither does Clark. Not about this." 

"Oh hell, it was worth a shot." 

"But we both appreciate your understanding and your offer to help." Lex said with honest sincerity. He wasn't playing Chloe as Clark had seen him do many times with others and it made Clark proud. 

"No problem." 

Chloe grinned widely at them both and Clark felt himself start to relax. 

The first step had been taken towards an open relationship with Lex. Maybe the rest wouldn't be so hard. 

* * *

"Put that away, Jonathon and turn off the light." 

"In a minute, Martha. Did you know I can get the latest market prices on this thing?" 

"Yes, dear. You just have to plug it into the Internet." 

"And I can keep track of breeding schedules, fertilizing timetables?" 

"Did you say thank you to Lex for giving it to you?" 

"What? Oh hell, Martha." 

"Jonathon." 

"Tomorrow. I'll say thanks tomorrow." 

"I know you will. Good night, Jonathon." 

"Night. Hey, is that a card game?" 

"Jonathon!" 

* * *

"Did they arrive?" 

Entering the library, Enrique glided towards Lex and placed a cream colored envelope on his desk. Lex checked its contents, two tickets to the Metropolis Philharmonic Opening Gala this coming Saturday night. 

From September through out November they'd been playing it cool in public, sharing intimacies only when they were alone or with Clark's parents, although at a much lower key and with a lot less heavy breathing. Jonathon Kent still looked lovingly at the shotgun mounted over the fireplace whenever Lex came within a foot of his son. 

Like the rest of the town, Pete and Lana were still not aware of the complexity of his relationship with Clark and Lex had not pressed it. No one knew of the times they spent kissing each other to orgasm in his car or the quick blow jobs in the loft before the 'folks' came home from the feed store. Similarly, Smallville was also unaware of their all night movie fests at the castle where they talked more than paid attention to what was on the big screen or the tranquil evenings Lex spent watching Clark study on his couch in the library when he should have been decoding spreadsheets. 

Romance was something not yet associated with Lex and Clark or Clark and Lex as Chloe Sullivan continued to call them. They were simply close friends who were rarely seen without the other. And if anyone perceived that was odd, no one said so. Of course, this was a town where man eating cows didn't make the front page in the local paper. So, go figure. 

Despite enjoying having Clark Kent solely to himself, Lex knew this grace period was vital to building the solid base they would need to withstand the prejudice that would eventually make itself known once they came out as lovers. He had purposely initiated it. 

Rampant mutants were one thing in Smallville but faggots in the god fearing rural town were bound to be quite another. However, if he wanted more than the Kents and Chloe Sullivan to attend his wedding reception, the hiding had to stop. It was time to give his beautiful farm boy up to the rest of the world and begin the good fight. The gala event in Metropolis would be the opening bell. 

Lex put down the envelope and looked up at his manservant. The tall, well dressed man was elegantly polished like most everything else he owned. 

"Has Clark's tux been to delivered to the Kent farm?" 

"Yes sir," Enrique replied crisply. "Along with the shoes. The cufflinks came this morning from the jewelers but I thought perhaps you might want to deliver those personally." 

"I do," Lex confirmed. "And you got my list about what to stock the limo with? Lots of fruit, Clark loves fruit." 

"Cook has made it her personal mission to see that Master Kent has everything he needs during the trip to and from the city." 

"She has?" 

"Yes, sir. She's quite fond of the lad. As are we all. He's an excellent choice." 

Lex looked sharply at the other man. Apparently the staff had categorized Clark's place in his life without asking. And if it was anything remotely close to Victoria, Lex would be doing mass interviews in the near future. 

"Would you mind explaining that last comment, Enrique? Choice of what?" 

"I believe the politically correct term is life partner, although Cook insists on calling Master Kent, 'your young man'." 

"Oh." 

Lex was stunned. 

Most of his household staff, with the exception of Enrique were locals and the majority of those, older women with families. Such tolerance of his gay relationship with one of their own was unexpected, as were their powers of observation. Surprisingly, they had correctly guessed he was courting Clark and not simply trying to get him into his bed for a quick fuck. 

Perhaps that was the difference. 

Also remembering Miss Sullivan's eager acceptance, Lex was beginning to believe he had given the inhabitants of Smallville less credit than they deserved. 

"Will there be anything else, sir?" 

"No, that will be all. Wait." Enrique halted at the threshold of the library and turned. "Please inform the staff that my private life is not a topic of gossip." Lex stopped and thought. "Unless it is discussed discreetly and with respect." 

"Of course, sir. I understand, sir." 

"And tell Cook, thank you. I'm sure 'my young man' will appreciate her efforts. I know I do." 

With a silent nod and an atypical Cheshire cat smile, Enrique bowed out of the room. 

Mulling over the latest victory in his war to win Clark's heart, Lex leaned back in his steel mesh chair and stared idly out the window. 

Treating Clark with respect was paying off--even in his own home. The lonely nights he'd been enduring were reaping benefits that even his mercurial mind in all its Lexian glory had not foreseen. 

From the first, against his libido's loud and frequent protests, Lex had been pacing his sexual encounters with Clark because that's what 'dating' was, wasn't it? 

Sex was secondary to building a trusting relationship or so all the romance books he'd recently added to his all ready expansive repertoire of reading material said. Lex didn't have a great amount of practical experience in that arena. 

Fucking, he knew. Using sex as a bargaining tool, he was _the_ master. But being a lover in the truest sense of the word, he was a complete and utter novice. 

Lex had never been in love before. 

Oh, he thought he was once. He'd even married the bitch but he knew the difference now. Even under the influence of mutant pheromones, a blow job from Desiree had never felt like a religious experience. 

It was another unexpected 'Kentian' benefit. 

When it finally happened, sex with Clark would be glorious. Lex was certain of it. He also knew he would be no longer able to keep his feelings to himself. 

During these last weeks, it had been difficult enough not to tell his beautiful farm boy how much he loved him. It was a constant hurt, a heavy weight in his chest. After making love to Clark, it would be impossible. He would be at the young man's mercy. 

Lex did not want to be the first to say the words 'I love you'. Just being in love was scary enough. The possibility that Clark might not feel as strongly and look at him with sad eyes was horrifying. Lex had to be sure his feelings were reciprocated before admitting his deepest, brightest secret. Luthors were not pitied by anyone, up to and _especially_ the love of their lives. 

It didn't matter how many times Clark, with his mutant powers had saved his life, Lex would ruthlessly destroy Clark's if he broke his heart. 

And _that_ , my friends, would be the stuff of legends. 

* * *

"You gave him what?" 

"Condoms. At his age, Martha, they're a boy's best friend." 

"But Jonathon..." 

"But what, _Martha_? Please tell me you didn't think they we're going to wait until the wedding night." 

"Well...no... but I hoped..." 

"Well, I hoped it wasn't going to happen at all and look where that got me. Martha, Clark's a grown boy, and sex...well, its something he's going to want if he's involved with somebody romantically." 

"Yes, I know. But did it have to be you giving them to him?" 

"I know with his biology he probably doesn't need the protection, but yes, I think so. I haven't been very supportive of this thing with Lex and he knows it. Every time he looks at me...I feel his resentment. I had to do _something_." 

"An olive branch." 

"Fancier than I would have put it but I guess, yeah. You're not upset with me, are you Martha?" 

"Did you rescind his curfew?" 

"Hell, no. That bastard better have him right back after the concert and not a minute later or I'll have his rich butt up on a pole scaring crows." 

"I love you, Jonathan Kent." 

* * *

"They're beautiful, Lex." Clark said, looking across the limo at him. 

"Does that mean you'll keep them after tonight?" 

The diamond encrusted, solid gold cufflinks bore the sigil of Alexander the Great. Clark nervously fingered the raised stylized 's' on the left one. 

"My dad will kill me if I do." 

"That's not what I asked, Clark." Lex said, his voice low and without inflection. 

Oh, dumb move Kent. You've insulted your boyfriend when he's just trying to do something nice for you. So what if the custom made cufflinks probably cost more than your father's farm? What else did you expect a man who has millions to buy you? Cheap knockoffs from Fordham's? 

"You're right, Lex. I'm sorry. This isn't about him." Clark moved to other side of the limo. "Thank you," he said after planting a light kiss to Lex's temple. The pale skin was unusually warm and slightly salty. "I love them and will keep them forever." 

"Love's a strong word, Clark. Don't you mean you just like them a lot?" Lex said softer this time. Without the edge. 

"No, I'm quite certain with you, love's always the right word, Lex." 

"Then I love that you love them." 

Right there and then Clark would have given anything to be able to say he loved Lex too but once again the timing sucked. 

If you want to be taken seriously, you do not proclaim your feelings after receiving a really great blow job or an obscenely expensive gift. Especially to the rich and exquisitely beautiful Lex Luthor who probably got declarations of love like most people got spam in their in-box. 

And Clark wanted very much for the man he loved to take him seriously. 

Beyond what most people thought, the cold hearted business tycoon, Lex Luthor was a sensitive man. He was not his reputation. He hurt easily and surprisingly, often. Clark's stupid blunder tonight was a case in point. 

When he finally got around to being able to tell Lex his feelings there could be no room for misinterpretation. Lex would _know_ Clark loved him and that it had nothing to do with sex or gifts. 

It was all just a matter of timing. 

* * *

Breaking away from an informative conversation on junk bonds, Lex put down his drink and moved to the end of the bar to watch Clark's return from the restroom. 

Quite a number of well coiffeured heads turned as his date strode across the marble floor of the Grand Tier Room in the Metropolis Concert Hall. Not surprising. Six feet four, raven haired and breathtakingly gorgeous tended to do that. 

"A guy in the can pinched my butt and called me your boy toy." Clark said when he reached the bar and stood shoulder to shoulder with him. Lex placed a light but proprietary hand in the middle of Clark's broad back. 

"Foolish man," he drawled, petting the fine weave of Clark's black tux like the soft fur behind a kitten's ear. "I'll have him deported tomorrow if you like." 

Clark smirked and squinted sideways at him. "I think he's American, Lex." 

"Irrelevant." Lex replied blithely but _meaning_ it. 

"Nah," Clark laughed, seemingly unaffected by the rude comment. "Don't waste your time, Lex. It was no big deal. Another guy thought I was a prostitute. I think that's what rough trade means, right? And that didn't bother me either." 

Let's hear it for Kent family self esteem. It was amazing what a _loving_ up bringing could accomplish. Lex was eternally grateful for his lover's savoir-faire, if not a little envious. 

"There are a lot of small people in this very big city, Clark. If you stick with me, tonight won't be the last time some jerk off thinks you're some pretty boy I bought," Lex warned. "It will get better the more we're seen together but it will take time. Are you sure you're all right with that?" 

Clark batted his eyelashes. Oh, he was a saucy wench tonight. "Do you think I'm pretty, Lex?" 

Pretty? Lex's dick promptly did hand stand in his pants. 

Lounging back on bar on his elbows, giving a megawatt smile and casually wearing a four thousand dollar Armani tux like it was a pair of worn out overalls with a broken strap, his young lover looked like the cover of GQ magazine. 

Pretty? Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Pretty had nothing on Clark Kent. 

"Clark..." 

"No, it's okay, Lex. I'm cool with that." Clark replied earnestly, getting back on track quicker than Lex, whose physical reaction to the young man beside him was seriously derailing his equilibrium at an alarming pace. "I'm just impressed they think I'm attractive enough for someone like you to spend money on." 

"Don't' underestimate yourself, Clark. You're...what's the word?" Lex paused and took a deep, calming breath. He was _not_ going to blow his load in front of this slew of blithering sycophants. Feeling his balls descend a safe margin, Lex then gave the boy a determined, full body search with his eyes and replied under his breath, "A hottie." 

"You think? Me? Really?" The playful glint in Clark's eyes returned. "Wanna put your mouth where your money is, Mr Luthor?" 

"That's really bad, Clark." Lex groaned while suppressing a smile. He could live two lifetimes and never become accustom this kind of carefree, simple humour. Compare to the barbed word games he usually parried from his set, he preferred it. But he was never really ready for it. Clark and his family almost always caught him off guard. It was a pleasantly refreshing modification. Lex felt his gripping, sexual tension ease slowly into the sweet buzz of comfortable companionship. 

"Doesn't change the question, though. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge." 

"Are you coming on to me, farm boy?" 

Clark dipped his head next to Lex's ear and whispered, "On you, in you. Where ever you want, Lex. Just say so." 

"In me?" Oh, now that was interesting. Lex had not considered bottoming for Clark, it simply wasn't his usual preference but remembering the generous hang of Clark's package, the thought was worth considering. "Do you want to fuck me, Clark?" Lex asked peering sideways at the suddenly bold young man. Their noses almost touched. 

"No, not really." Clark's large front teeth worried one half of his bottom lip. "But I would mind you doing me. We've been dating more than three months, Lex. I think it's time we took the next step." 

A bolt of adrenaline slammed through Lex, destroying his recently won composure. Sights and sounds became sharper and the world narrowed down to him, Clark and the three feet or so of wooden bar they were leaning against. 

He wanted this. He was hungry for it, starving. And now it was being offered. The only problem was Clark had yet to tell him he loved him. Lex had vowed to himself that he would not take Clark to his bed until the younger man had verbalized his devotion. 

But all that said, could he really say no to this pretty young god? 

In the reception bar of the most prestigious concert hall of all of Kansas, if not the whole of the Midwest, Gotham included, Lex was being proposition by a man, that had he been raised in Metropolis, would have the city at his feet by now. After one night, Clark was already half way there. 

Clark's time among the Metropolitan elite had been brief, a handful of minutes and with the exception of a jealous few, the young farm boy from Smallville had charmed the most jaded with his over large smile and his guileless answers to their blunt and often caustic questions. 

Could he really afford to say no to this pretty and imperially candid young god? 

Given the ground his handsome young date had already conquered, it would social and political suicide to do so. Not that such vulgar concepts mattered to Lex personally, but he was a businessman with a fledgling corporation to run. It would be fiscally irresponsible to throw away such an obviously valuable asset because of a sappy romantic agenda. So would he? 

No. 

Not even if he had a choice. 

But before anyone's dick was in anyone's butt, Lex would do his best as a Luthor to elicit an 'I love you' from the only creature that had ever made him think twice about the motivations that had governed the last ten years of his life. 

In some macabre fashion he would stick to the twisted ideals and goals he had adopted as a matter of survival _and_ keep his heart intact. It would be the epitome of multitasking. 

Ironically, while his father would despise his choice of life mate, he would also be insufferably proud of his cold hearted and calculated tactics to secure him. Fuck him. It made Lex hate the blind old bastard even more. 

"You might be right, farm boy." The bar lights dimmed twice briefly and Lex checked his mother's watch. Intermission was almost over. "Do you want to stay for the second half of the concert?" 

"No, I want to go home and... _fuck_." Clark answered, stumbling adorably over the last word. Lex gave him bonus points anyway. 

Fueled by the expectant passion of final consummation, Lex reached up to wind his fingers into the hair at the nape of Clark's neck and yanked his head down for a quick but stinging kiss. "Let's go, sunshine," he ordered, taking a sweetly stunned and attractively mussed Clark Kent by the hand. 

This was all his and he _was_ going to take it. 

Finally. 

Carefully. 

Thankfully. 

* * *

The long limo ride back to Smallville was anti-climatic. 

Although Clark was geared up for something more, Lex had done nothing but hold him and tell him boring stories about the people he'd met that night when they finally made to the car. Clark had tried to be attentive but had fallen asleep before the limo had left the Metropolis city limits. 

"We're home, sunshine." 

"Wha?" Clark yawned and dragged his knuckles across his heavy eyelids. When he noticed the moonlight was shining through the limo windows at an odd angle, Clark realized he was no longer sitting up. Sometime during the three hour trip he had curled into a fetal position and was using one of Lex's thighs as a pillow. 

Remaining horizontal, Clark rolled on his back and straightened his legs until his heels hit the far side of the car's cab. Lex's lap was warm under his neck. 

"Are we at the castle?" 

"The farm." 

Clark frowned. "But you said we were home." 

"You are. Come on, get up." Trying to get him to move, Lex flexed his hips but Clark refused to budge. 

"Come in with me," he asked softly. 

"It's late, Clark and you need your sleep." Lex gave him a replica of one of his mother's sterner looks. It was kinda weird seeing it on his boyfriend's face but not enough to move him. 

"I need you more," he pleaded. "Send the car home and stay the night with me." 

"That's not a good idea." 

"Why not? My bed's small but it will fit both of us if we cuddle." 

"I can't sleep with you and not touch you, Clark. We've gone beyond that." 

"I'm not asking you not to, Lex. I want you to touch me. I want you enter my house, go through my kitchen, scoot around the Lazy-Boy in the living room, come up the stairs to my room holding my hand..." Remembering how sinfully tactile the older man was, Clark snuggled the back of his head deeper into cradle of Lex's lap. He was not above seduction to get what he wanted. "And fuck me in my bed," he finished in what he hoped was a sexy drawl. 

"Your parents will hear..." Lex hissed through his teeth. Under his head, Clark was pleased to feel something long and solid taking shape. 

Score one for the horny seventeen year old virgin. 

"Yeah, so but they expect us to have sex," Clark paused and wondered briefly if he should tell Lex about his father giving him a box condoms. Nah, mentioning Dad would probably kill the mood he was working very hard at trying to create. "And if I'm not mistaken," he continued, not missing a beat, "They've already given you permission. My virginity is already as good as yours. Why not take it?" 

Clark reached up and pulled at Lex's bowtie. The black silk strip unfurled and Clark undid the top button of the crisp white collar. "You do want me, don't you?" he asked stroking the pale flesh of the now exposed neck lightly with his fingertips. 

"That's not up for debate, Clark." Lex shrunk back into the limo's leather seat, taking his neck out of teasing range. "Stop that." Lex said, the order slipping so softly from his lips, Clark knew he couldn't possibly mean it. 

"Make me." Clark challenged as he moved to undo the rest of the buttons of Lex's dress shirt. "Come inside and make love to me, Lex." 

"Love?" 

Like the other night when Chloe mentioned the word in the loft, Clark felt Lex's body stiffened only this time the other man didn't relax immediately. Except for the flaring of his nostrils, he sat stock still and staring straight ahead. It was creepy. Clark sat up. 

"Yeah, love," he said shyly, hoping hadn't picked the wrong time to finally speak his heart. Unsure of himself, Clark shrugged his shoulders and offered with a weak laugh, "Like it could be anything else, Lex." 

Lex turned his head slowly to look a him. His eyes were narrowed. "Are you absolutely sure?" 

Clark swallowed hard and nodded. "Does that scare you, Lex?" 

"Does it scare you, Clark?" Lex shot back. 

"Yes...no....both. I don't know. Does that make sense?" 

"More than you know." Lex said softly, breaking off his killer stare. Sighing, he threw an arm around Clark's shoulders. "Please understand that I do want to make love to you...badly. A few hours ago I was ready enact the cheesiest of clich's and fuck you in the back of this car," Lex gave him a twisted smile. "But then, thank god, I recalled I had more class than that. I think we should wait until tomorrow night, Clark," he continued, the smile and the sarcasm fading. "I don't want to rush this. Everything has to be perfect." 

"This was what you were thinking about while I slept, wasn't it? You want our first time to be special." 

"You can pack a bag and come home with me after Sunday dinner. We can make _love_ for the rest of the evening in my much _larger_ bed and then fall asleep in each other's arms." 

"But I'll have school in the morning." One night was not going to be enough. Clark wanted the next day too. 

"So, I'll make a call and have the bus stop right outside the gates for you." Lex said, misinterpreting his protest. 

"I'm not worried about the bus. I don't _need_ a ride to get to school on time. I've never been late for class, even when I missed it." Clark said with all seriousness, suddenly in the mood for another admission. "I'm pretty fast on my feet when I want to be, Lex." 

"Careful, Clark. Your secrets are showing." 

"Well, maybe it's about time. There are things about me you should know." 

"And as much as I want to know them, Clark I'm not sure the limo with Enrique sitting in up front is the best place. He won't listen, and we can most likely trust him if he does, but like sex, I want whatever secrets you have to tell me to be just between us. All your intimate details belong to me and only me, you understand? They're mine and I won't share them with anyone, Clark." 

"Oh." 

"Yes, oh." Leaning over, Lex gave Clark's forehead a soft and no where near long enough kiss. "So you understand how important it is for us to wait just a little while longer?" 

Clark blinked. Twice. 

Damn. Lex had done it again. 

In the course of their short conversation Lex had idealized their relationship, portrayed what was happening between them into larger than life proportions or in Lexian terms, made it legendary and Clark would bet the man hadn't even noticed. 

It was just the way Lex Luthor was. 

The young, self proclaimed conqueror to be, did everything off scale and way out of whack from what was considered normal for most mortals as a matter of course. Maybe because of his empirical upbringing--hell, the guy lived in a castle for crying out loud--Lex didn't know how to behave any differently. It wasn't a complaint. Being from the upper side of whacked himself, that suited Clark better than fine. He gave his lover his biggest smile. 

"Sure, I get it. You're a romantic, Lex." 

"I _am_ not." 

Nope. The rich bald guy didn't have a freakin clue. 

"Oh, yeah, sure you are. You're sensitive and sweet. A big old mush ball of warm fuzzy feelings." 

"Clark..." Lex growled. Damn, he was sexy as hell when he did that. Clark's cock stiffened in his overpriced pants. Clark tilted his head and parted his lips. 

"Kiss me good night, fuzzy." 

"That's not an especially appropriate nickname for me, Clark." Lex huffed. Ooh, stuffed shirt. That was even better. Clark loved getting under Lex's skin. It rarely ever happened and it was a thrill for him to be the perpetrator. 

"Mushy, then?" Clark purred, his voice purposely dropping an octave. 

"Do you _want_ a kiss good night, my young Master Kent?" 

"If you won't make slow torturous love to me, then yeah, I'd like a kiss." 

"Slow?" Lex's voice caught. "That's how you'd want it, Clark? You'd want it slow?" 

"A hard fast fuck would be good too. I dream at night about wrapping my ankles around your neck and feeling you pound into me." 

"Damn you to hell, farm boy. Come _here_." 

So Clark didn't get all he was asking for that night but still, the kiss was pretty damn good. It was wet and sloppy and given by a man that most definitely wanted him and almost certainly loved him. 

Oh, yeah. 

Pretty damn good, indeed. 

Afterward, while he took a much needed cold shower and readied for bed, Clark's heart beat out the sonata he heard the orchestra play earlier that night in the big hall. He hummed an aria aloud while checking his emails before hitting the sack. 

Besides the regular and much hated spam, there was only one of importance. There was no salutation or sign off but from the addy, he knew the message was from Lex. 

The older man must have sent it from his cell phone in the limo for Clark to receive it so quickly. His heart caught in his throat when he read the short note. It was a quote or maybe a poem. He didn't know by who but it was so beautiful, it didn't matter. Clark wallowed in a pool of incredibly good feelings while printing it so he could place the loving missive in his knapsack for safe keeping and future pawing. 

On the fifteen inch screen, he read the message over and over again as his aged printer wined. 

*"A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever....I am in love with it, I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked, I am mad for it to be in contact with me. 

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair, This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again."* 

It was better than any kiss. Way better. 

Oh god, he if wasn't in love with Lex Luthor before, he was now. 

Desperately so. 

* * *

"And where the hell are you off to? Get back in this bed this minute, Martha Kent!" 

"I was only going to call over to the castle and check to see if he has everything he needs." 

"Like what? His pj's? I'm sorry, hon but I don't think he's going to need them tonight." 

"Jonathon!" 

"I know, I know, take my word for it, I _know_." 

"Oh, Jonathon, he's only seventeen." 

"Yes..." 

"And Lex is twenty three." 

"I've done the math too. Believe me, Martha, it doesn't do much good to dwell on it." 

"I'm being silly, aren't I? I mean, if it weren't for me, Clark wouldn't even be there." 

"You're being the concerned mother you have every right to be and Martha..." 

"Yes?" 

"I wasn't going to say this before but...ah..." 

"Out with it, Jonathon." 

"You've seen the way they look at each other. I don't think wild horses would have kept them apart. I don't think it was ever up to either of us." 

"You think they were fated to be together? That Clark was always going to be drawn Lex no matter how much meddling I did?" 

"Don't like it much but, yeah. And Clark is happy. Didn't you once tell me that was all that mattered?" 

"I did at that. You're a smart man Jonathan Kent and I love you very much." 

"Well, since we have the house to ourselves for the first night in fourteen years, I think I'd like you show me just how much...in the...ah...kitchen?" 

"Ooh, a very smart man." 

* * *

"Wow, I could live ten years in this room and never starve!" 

"Well, there's not usually so much fruit..." 

"What about the flowers? Geez, Lex. They're everywhere!" 

"Again, not usually." 

"Did you do this all for me?" 

"I would have given a chance." Lex grumbled under his breath. However, after one word to his staff that Clark would be spending the night, 'his first real night', the conversion of his bedroom into a virtual cornucopia of sensual delights had begun from the moment he'd given the news. Clark hadn't gotten around to noticing them yet, but there were also flannel sheets on the bed instead of the usual 800 thread Egyptian cotton. Lex wondered briefly who on his staff had preempted that particular kink. 

"Are you pleased, Clark?" 

"Yeah, how could I not be? Come here, you." 

"If you insist." Lex said with a shrug while trying not to run like a madman into Clark's outstretched arms. 

"I do." 

A momentary thrill ran up Lex's back at the mention those two small words. One day very soon, he vowed he would hear them again but in another room and in an entirely different state. He'd heard Vermont was lovely in springtime. 

"You make me feel like the most important person in the world." Clark sighed as he engulfed Lex in a grizzly sized bear hug. "Thank you." 

"You're welcome, sunshine." 

"Sunshine." Clark kissed him gently beside his left eye like a cherish toddler. Lex would have bitched at the indignity if it hadn't felt so good. "I like it when you call me that, Lex. It reminds me of that night in the woods." 

"Ah, yes," he muttered, wrapping his arms around and nestling unabashedly into his own bigger than life, six feet four, plush toy. "Your first blow job." 

"No, the first night I tasted us together. It was the absolute best so far, Lex." 

"Oh, so who's the romantic now?" 

Clark laughed. "Guilty, yeah but you're still the master, fuzzy." 

"You know if you call me that in public, people are just not going to get it." 

"I'll explain, if you like? Or show them. I have how you feel in writing now, you know." 

"Pass," he said into Clark's shoulder as he remembered with embarrassment the sappy attack he'd had last night after dropping Clark off at the farm. 

Quoting one of Donne's most intimate of sonnets in an email was a knee jerk response. But the boy had all but said he loved him in the limo. What the fuck else was he supposed to do? Dammit, Lex had just reacted. "I'm a Luther," he huffed now he that he had a little time and distance from the event. "I'd rather people fall to my feet in abject fear than laughter." 

"Okay, then I'll just show my mother. Knowing her, she'll absolutely love the poem." 

" _That_ , I don't have a problem with. I'd fall to _her_ feet if she asked me. I would kind of like it if you did show her." 

"Oh, Lex, you're such a softie." 

"Then do something about it. Isn't that what you came here tonight to do?" Lex had already decided that the telling of Clark's long hidden secrets could wait. It would be love before disclosure. Compared to what was happening now, they weren't all that compelling. 

Hell, everyone was a mutant in Smallville to some degree or another. It was no big deal. Lex, hairless as he was and his body's uncanny ability to mend a three inch gash in the time it took to heal a paper cut, was a mutant himself. Whatever Clark could do wouldn't knock him off his feet. It would be interesting but that's about it. 

The younger man had hesitated at the postponement but had eventually agreed that tonight would be for touching and tomorrow, talking. 

"Make me hard, Clark," he said, grinding his pelvis forward. It was a mute point. Thinking of what was to come, Lex had been hard all the way through Sunday dinner and had made creative use of his napkin. 

"Get me naked Lex and I will." 

"Done." He replied breathlessly to the big man holding him but didn't move. This next step was going to be large. He was good where he was and wasn't in any mood to hurry. When he went off the high board this time, it was going to be one hell of a dive, and into the deepest waters of his life. 

Lex was about to commit a major felony and not give a big furry mutant rat's ass in hell. 

Making love to Clark was not about cold steel on his wrists and being taken away for ten to twenty. It wasn't about abusing membership etiquette, or breaking laws, which is what most people who didn't have money called it. 

Lex didn't need to do that anymore. He'd reached his bullshit limit years ago and learned that aspect of rebellion wasn't all that satisfying. If it was even supposed to be. The thrill he craved from Clark wasn't anything like that. It was a whole other world of different. Being with his young lover didn't feel wrong and it didn't feel empty. 

Clark was not a possible plaintiff in a major court action. He was a man. A big, oh so beautiful man who maybe, almost definitely was in love with him and was older than Lex in so many fantastic ways that Lex couldn't begin to count them and dared any one else do so. 

Clark was not a violated minor. He was not a confused child. Not a victim but a consenting partner, and if the hungry look in his hazel eyes was any indication, an eager and willing participant. Ensconced firmly in his supposed victim's arms, and withstanding the gentle caress of his soft, full lips against his neck, Lex had no doubts. 

Lex found it hard to believe there were actual laws against this particular kind of wonderful but sadly, there were. 

Clark was young, seventeen years young, and not legally responsible for his actions for another seven months. If Lex took him now, as he was most certainly going to do tonight, he would be the only one charged by the state of Kansas for the illegal act of sodomy. Lex would do major jail time and Clark would do at the most, counseling. 

It was a dicey situation, fraught with dire circumstances and certain angst--but only if you thought about it--something Lex had no intention of doing. Mental acuity was not on the agenda tonight. 

And if he had to, he wouldn't think the rest of his life if it meant keeping his most cherished farm boy by his side forever. 

He was a never look at a price tag and hate your guts just for having more, obscenely, scandalously rich man. That had to be good for something, somewhere, somehow. If he wanted to, couldn't he turn off the whole fucking world and stop the need for thinking all together? Couldn't Enrique find a way to do that for him? 

No, probably not. The odds weren't good. 

But for Clark Kent, anything was worth a try. 

Because he was...everything. 

* * *

Clark had cleaned himself in and out to be ready for this. 

The 'in' part had kinda of squicked him but Clark hadn't let the indelicacies of the procedure be a deterrent. Being at his best for Lex was far too important. 

Reading the instructions on the Internet, he'd held the bag up and filled himself so full of warm soapy water he thought he was going to explode. When he had removed the nozzle, and had anally expectorated, the relief was so intense he'd almost come. 

Almost. Not quite. 

But with the thought of Lex's seed filling his anal cavity instead of the cleansing mixture he'd carefully made and thoroughly flushed his bowels with to prepare, Clark had painted the tiles in the shower with his ejaculate like graffiti on an alley wall. 

The fantasy had felt good. Wonderful. Better than drinking Lex's warm natural fluid into his mouth. It was only an image but it was more visceral, more real, more _there_. 

Having Lex come inside his ass, meant something. It was bigger, sharper. Clark didn't have the faintest idea why but there it was. Anywhere else seemed a wasted effort now, a shadow of what could be, an indistinct fog. He didn't get it and really didn't care. He just wanted it. 

It was something that had to be. 

From day one, Clark had always wanted this. He knew that now. Everything else had been a build up. Figuring out why was trivial. It was all about being filled by Lex. It was what they both wanted, so who cared? Not him as long as got it. Did Lex? The older man wouldn't even know how important it was unless Clark told him. 

No, he wouldn't know. 

Clark had brought his father's condoms. They were in a red and blue box nestled under a fresh pair of underwear in his knapsack and Clark vowed with a vengeance that surprised him, that's where they would stay. 

The sweat of his body is going to cover me. His desire is going to coat my insides. He owns me even before he touches me. Clark wondered if Lex had any idea. 

No, Clark thought. He didn't...couldn't. He's never said. Didn't know how. 

But Clark did know that the condoms would be a trip in a steady step, a pothole in the road, a big honking deterrent. They would spoil everything. He didn't want them and Lex didn't have to know why. 

He didn't have to know. 

It wasn't exactly a secret, just something he wasn't going to tell right now. 

* * *

His dreams had fallen. 

They were no longer in his imagination but had been plucked from his unconscious to be pressed insistently into his waking world violently enough to make his head spin. 

Clark Kent wanted to make love. 

With him. 

Christ. Oh, _Christ_. 

Broken from his fugue by the incredibility of his own good fortune, Lex slid his hands up the front of Clark's flannel shirt and pushed gently. 

In a slow half circle, the young man released his soft, wet mouth from Lex's neck, nipped at his earlobe and kissed his temple lightly before taking a small step back. The big arms still held him but now there was space enough between them to look into each others eyes. 

"Naked." Lex croaked. "Remember?" 

"Not something I'm likely to forget. I want it too much " Clark leaned in and placed another feather light kiss to the side of his face. It was the young man's favorite place to touch him, Lex realized with queer fondness. There were bigger, more obvious places but his temple was where Clark's lips gravitated time and time again. "I want you too much, Lex." 

"Then strip for me, Clark. I want....please," His breath caught in his throat. It was only when Lex tried to refrain from trembling, he realized he already was. "I want to watch you," he whispered. 

"For you." Clark said, taking a step back and crossing his arms to catch the tails of his shirt. "And only you," he promised while giving Lex the classic Kent glare. 

In a whoosh of fabric, the upper portion of Clark Kent was revealed. The younger man hadn't bothered with buttons. He had pulled the garment, undone over his head. Lex gasped when he saw there was no undershirt to spoil the view. 

Even half naked, Clark Kent was something to look at. 

The muscles of his upper torso weren't perky or gym sculpted but heavy, solid and practical. There was a healthy substance to his large form that made Lex want to grab and hold on to it. He instead grazed a rounded bicep the roughly the size of his skull lightly with his fingertips. 

"Magnificent," he praised, genuinely awed. 

"You think so, Lex?" Clark hung his head shyly and picked at the button of his jeans. "I'm not as buffed as some of the guys on the football team are." 

Tell him you want to stick your dick up his ass, Clark was all lips and permeating stares. But tell him he was beautiful, he blushed like the school boy he was. Weird in a way but also undeniably sexy. 

"I don't want to fuck a football player, Clark." Lex growled, learning the lesson. "But I do want to fuck you." 

Clark's button popped and sailed across the room. "Oh, geez, Lex." 

Ducking the small brass projectile, Lex bit his bottom lip and tried not to laugh. 

He, the man who'd been a member of Mensa since he was fourteen, was about to make love someone who used the word 'geez' frequently in normal conversation. It wasn't really funny, a little surreal maybe, but not definitely not funny. Lex blamed his inappropriate giddiness on nerves. Nerves? Christ. That wasn't funny either. Nor true. In the bedroom, Luthors were never nervous, goddammit. 

"The jeans, Clark," he prompted, wiping his damp palms on the soft knap of his trousers and making a mental note to tell Enrique that the beginning of December was definitely too early for the castle's heat to be on. Who cared if there was frost on the windows? It was a bloody furnace in here. 

"What? Oh, yeah. Right, Lex." 

Bending over, Clark undid his boots, heeled out of them and then, pulled off his white socks. When he returned to his pants, Lex noticed he looked momentarily dazed to find his button gone, but after the short pause, regained his equilibrium, undid his fly and shucked the jeans to the side. 

"Naked, Lex." Clark announced, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. The blush remained but now the heated gaze had returned. Its honesty intensity burned Lex and he looked down and away to the young man's center. 

Between strong thighs, was Clark's sex, firm, upright and leaking cream. His mouth watering, Lex inched forward intending to catch a drop but Clark seized him by the biceps before his knees could kiss the carpet. 

" _No_." Clark said forcefully in a baritone so low, it surprised Lex. "I don't want to come until I'm filled with you. No blowjobs tonight, Lex Luthor." Seeing his shock, Clark loosened his iron grip and added softly, "Please?" 

With his heart in his throat, Lex nodded his acquiesce. He wasn't frightened by the young man's sexual aggression, just too fucking turned on to speak. 

Fucking was good. Making love was better. But the idea of being able to do both with Clark went beyond that. It was...was...oh, fuck, Lex cursed under his breath. If it wasn't so close to 'thinking', Lex vowed he would have come up with a sufficiently apt description. 

Smiling, Clark let him go and walked over to the bed to recline lazily back on his elbows, his back arched and legs splayed open suggestively. Lex's ever attentive balls contracted and did a tri-axel in his silk boxers. 

As he disrobed quickly under Clark's ravenous stare, Lex wondered briefly if Martha Kent had any regrets about giving him her only son. 

He hoped not, because after tonight, there was no way in hell she was ever going to get him back. 

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Clark?" 

Lex was hovering above him with his arms straight, splayed hands planted firmly on the indigo comforter by Clark's shoulders and his slim hips nestled behind the backs of Clark's thighs. If his cock were inside Clark instead of uselessly spit polishing the vee of his groin, it would be a good mating position. Needing something of Lex inside him, Clark ignored the stupid question, wrapped a hand around the base of the older man's skull and brought him down for a wet kiss. 

Granting his unspoken wish, Lex unlocked his elbows and proceeded to fuck his mouth with his tongue. He was talented, his experience telling and had often made Clark come from kissing alone. 

But not tonight. 

Before the heat in his groin went critical, Clark slipped his free hand between their bodies, the knuckles remaining dry while his palm slid easily along Lex's sweating chest and belly. Careful to avoid touching his own, Clark fisted Lex's erection and stroked it roughly. The older man released his mouth and shouted. 

"Jesus, fucking Christ, Clark!" 

Lex was a very vocal lover and Clark appreciated the guidance. Being a novice, it helped to know when he did something right. 

Breaking from Clark's grip, Lex's got back up on his hands and threw back his head. Neck and teeth bared, taut stomach fluttering and pale skin shining in the low light of the bedroom, he grunted into Clark's sweat moistened hand. His fixed desire was incredible to see. 

Nothing human could look this impossibly beautiful. So slight and slim but moving with uncanny power and grace. Sometimes Clark wondered if Lex Luthor was an alien himself. 

While watching the other worldly display, Clark snagged a bottle from the nightstand and flipped the lid with his thumb. Lube, he hoped and was rewarded positively when he squeezed and a clear, slick substance oozed over his fingers. Dropping the bottle on the now rumpled coverlet, he quickly switched hands. The motion got Lex's attention, and his hips stilled. 

"What are you doing?" The older man's breath was raspy and his eyes, glazed. 

"Getting you ready to enter me," Clark replied, continuing to coat Lex's cock with lube with singular determination. There had been condoms on the night table as well and Clark hoped to get his boyfriend too worked up to remember them. Gasping, Lex went down on one elbow and pulled his hand away. 

"That's my job, Clark." 

"You were busy." 

"Distracted is more like it." Lex snorted and then reached for the bottle Clark had abandoned. "It won't happen again." 

His mouth once again claimed by his lover's lips, Clark felt warmed oil spread over the puckered entrance to his body and then, a slim invader. In anticipation, he spread his legs and moaned. 

"Hurt?" Lex asked, breaking the kiss. 

"It can't." 

"Can't?" Lex mouthed softly before his eyebrows raised in understanding. "Can't hurt," he repeated firmly as he pumped another slick digit into Clark. Watching his face closely, Lex's eyes narrowed. "But can it feel good?" Another jab. Another greasy finger. Now there were three. 

"Yessss," Clark hissed as his butt left the bedspread. Damn, but wasn't his boyfriend full of stupid questions tonight? Considering where his fingers were, couldn't Lex feel his insides quivering? "More," he pleaded when he touched back down. 

"Yes, more." Lex laughed, "I've always wanted _more_ from you, Clark." 

Slightly put off by the other man's untimely mirth, Clark bellowed, "Shut up, Lex and fuck me!" The busy fingers playing in his ass had stolen his patience as well as his sense of humour. 

Following his orders with a frown, Lex silently removed his fingers and took hold of his purple tipped cock. 

His body shaking with need, Clark watched as Lex angled his long shaft down into position, closed his eyes, and while biting his bottom lip from coral to blood red, shot his hips forward without mercy. 

This time it was Clark who screamed. 

* * *

It should not feel like this. 

It wasn't bad, oh no, it was damn fucking glorious, no where near bad, but it shouldn't feel like he was being sucked off at the same time as he was fucking. It had been awhile since Lex had done this with a man. How long had he'd been in Smallville? But he recalled squeezing as orgasm neared was normal, not suction. The farm boy had muscles he shouldn't. 

The velvet walls of Clark's anal passage were literally rippling and massaging the come out of him. Absurdly curious about what else was different about his lover given the fact he was cock deep in him and had better things to think about, Lex lifted his eyelids. 

Under him, Clark was writhing and his hands opening and closing spasmodically on the coverlet. His heavy muscles were pulled tight across his chest and abdomen and he grimaced appropriately each time Lex pounded his cock deeper into his ass. Intoxicatingly beautiful certainly, but fairly normal. Clark looked liked he was being fucked good and hard, except for one thing. Besides a faint line of moisture making his dark locks curl along his hairline, the younger man hadn't broken a sweat. What wetness there was on his body, came from Lex, who was sweating like a pig. 

"Lex?" Clark's large eyes were open and glistening. The sparkling dew on his lashes fascinated Lex, who had suddenly become a strange aficionado of his lover's bodily fluids. 

"What?" he asked while dipping his head down to kiss away a pretty tear. 

"You've stopped." 

"I have?" Lex quickly looked down where his body joined Clark's. The boy was right. He had. His stomach muscles were rolling in waves but his hips had gone stagnant. When had that happened? 

"Don't...please." Clark whimpered softly, catching his immediate attention. "I need you so badly. Please move...please..." 

Before Lex could apologize for his lapse, a powerful pulse of sensation pulled at his entire groin making his vision waver and his head spin. And regardless of blinking eyes and reeling mind, his hips snapped to and suddenly remembered how to rock. Without waiting for the rest to catch up, they drove his very happy cock repeatedly in long jabs into his supernaturally demanding lover. 

Once he collected up enough of his gray cells, Lex quickly understood that he might be the one at the wheel but it was definitely Clark doing the driving. 

Again, not normal his clinical mind pointed out annoyingly but his blissed out body, apparently wasn't interested. It was too busy overloading on the special connection which was becoming less unusual as the weird fluttering tapered off and the tightening he had pondered earlier began. 

His beautifully strange love was about to come. 

"Oh, fuck!" Lex screamed as a bolt of sympathetic lightening shot down his spine and into his over sensitive balls. 

Desperate for release, Lex hunched over Clark, grabbed his large shoulders, purchase made easier by the young man's lack of perspiration and plowed faster. He was so near, so fucking close. The kicker, the extra push came when Clark braced his big arms on the bed and lifted his hips to match his frantic pace. Enthusiasm was always a turn on. 

As the flannel sheets snapped free from the corners of the mattress, Clark merely grunted, making small, whispery sounds while Lex cries became so murderously loud, Lex knew the staff would be high fiving each other for a month. 

Eventually, Clark's silent body stiffened and it was only when he felt the cherished heat of semen splash his belly, did Lex remember he'd forgotten to wear a condom. A thread of fear wove through him at his inexcusable oversight as he helplessly joined his lover in orgasm and filled him with copious amounts of his possibly tainted issue. 

He'd tested okay but tests could be wrong, his mind ranted even as primal instinct took over. There was such a thing as a false positive, couldn't there be a negative? His brooding was interrupted abruptly when the crushing grip on his kidneys ceased and Clark's heels bounced on the mattress. 

Oh, Christ, Lex cursed while the pain he hadn't noticed a moment ago faded. He thought too much even when he did his best not to. He was his own worst enemy. Even the ever resourceful Enrique couldn't help him with that. 

Gulping great lungfuls of air, Lex pulled out of his sated lover, taking amusement but not surprise from the way his softening cock was gently skimmed clean by the tight hole, and tumbled beside him in a sweating heap on the bed. 

"Thank you, Lex." A shining Clark kissed him full on the mouth. "It was great." 

Great? 

Now greatness was something Lex aspired to every morning he woke up, but in terms of making love to Clark Kent, the word was sorely inadequate. But since he didn't have another readily available, he didn't disabuse the younger man of his choice. 

"It was us making love, Clark." Lex said simply while struggling to fit the bulk of six foot plus teenager under his shoulder. It would have worked better the other way, with Clark cradling him, but dammit. This was _his_ bed. 

"Making love." In an easy twist, Clark slipped free from his arms, and rolled over on to Lex's chest. Clark's come squished between their bellies and sealed them together in such an obscenely decadent manner it made Lex grin like an idiot and not care. "Does that mean you love me, Lex?" 

His smile dropped. Just when he thought he had things under control... 

Lex bit the inside of his cheek and nodded mutely. It wasn't quite the same as saying it first but Clark's question deserved a response. "I...I have for sometime," he said, carefully watching the younger man for the slightest hint of a wince. It didn't happen. Clark sighed loudly and smiled. 

"Me too. You're all want. You're all I need. Oh god, Lex. I've wanted to tell you for ages." 

Words to die for--kill for if need be. 

"Then tell me now." Please. 

The younger man kissed him and then keeping his mouth where it was, whispered against his lips. "I love you." 

"Christ, Clark." Lex cursed, while looking deep into his hazel eyes. He could not combat honesty with lies. Not Clark's kind. Even to protect his precious pride. "I love you too, every freaking, mutant bit of you," he said, vaguely aware that he was gushing and still enough of a Luthor to be remotely pissed about it. 

Clark pulled back his head so Lex could see the whole of his face. "I'm not a mutant, Lex." 

Lex laughed. "No, you're just your run of the mill Porsche proof, beep, beep, Roadrunner kind of guy who's allergic to green meteor rocks." Lex didn't bother to mention the amazing tricks Clark could do with his ass. Can we spell overkill, boys and girls? 

"You don't understand..." Clark shook his head and sat up. He wasn't laughing back. He was frowning. Feeling a little lost, Lex grabbed the damp cloth he'd placed on the night stand earlier and then righted himself so he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Clark. 

"It's all right, sunshine," he cooed first wiping the drying come from the distraught younger man's front before doing his own. "I'm a mutant too," Lex said, tossing the dirty cloth to the side. "It's no big deal." 

Clark rubbed his belly just under his navel with his the heel of his hands like it hurt. "I can shoot lasers out of my eyes," he whispered, staring downward. 

"Lasers?" Lex shook his head, genuinely concerned. The boy had seen one too many cheesy sci-fi flick. "No, Clark. I don't think--" 

"And can see through things with my x-ray vision." Clark looked up at him, jaws tight and his Kentian gaze at full throttle. "Tell me, Lex," he snapped, his tone full and strong and reminiscent of his 'fuck me' voice. "Can a mutant do that?" 

"A powerful one, maybe." Lex granted and then thought about it. Kents always told the truth. "Shit, Clark. What were you doing? Grazing in that field when the meteors came down?" 

"No, landing in it." 

"Tell me you didn't just say that." 

"I'm an alien, Lex. Love me now?" 

* * *

Love me now? 

He really shouldn't have added that last part, but Lex's disbelief had really been pissing him off. Clark hadn't expected that. The older man had said loved him. It wasn't right. He should believe him. The snot nosed challenge couldn't be helped. 

"I said I love you and if you don't apologize to me within the next few seconds, Clark Kent, you can haul your alien ass out of my bed right now." 

What? 

Oh wow, the man was angry at _him_. Stunned and a little afraid, Clark peered indirectly through his lashes at Lex. 

Still as stone and with eyes harder than granite, Lex sat staring coldly at him. The soft fuzzy edges Clark had become accustomed to these last months, were no where to be seen. They weren't in this bedroom, this state, country, world or universe most likely. And Lex wasn't merely angry. He was all out furious at Clark for not, what? 

Believing in him too? 

And hurting him. Oh, yeah. Hurting him big time. 

Suddenly Clark understood how just much Lex Luthor cared. 

"Lex, I didn't mean...," he started before being cut off abruptly. 

"Apologize, Clark." Lex demanded. "Or leave." 

Right. That's it then. No explanations. Just get to the point. 

"I'm sorry." Clark said with all his heart and as predicted, Lex's transformation was immediate. 

"So am I." Lex said softly, his hands reaching out to pet Clark's face and neck. "But please don't ever doubt me again, okay? You can break me in two or fry me with your laser beam eyes. I'll even tolerate you sleeping around on me, whatever but don't ever believe I don't love you." 

Clark's eyebrows shot up. "You'd let me have sex with someone else?" Considering the circumstances, it was an insane thing to ask, but it was the only the part of Lex's statement that sounded odd. 

"Well,...no." The older man's lips twisted briefly. "I lied about that part but not about the rest." 

"Good," Clark rubbed his belly where he could feel Lex's seed still melting and warming his bowels. "Because I don't want anyone else. Ever. I...I don't think I could anymore." 

"I was that impressive, eh?" Lex hugged him and laughed. The sound was joyous. "Even when I took a siesta halfway through?" 

"Yeah, that was funny. What happened?" 

"I realized I was fucking an alien. You're different inside, Clark." 

"I am?" An awful thought hit Clark. Lex had been screaming. Was it more than usual? Using his x-ray vision, he scanned downward, sparing a brief grimace for the livid bruises on the older man's biceps and hips. They were pretty in a terrible kind of way but they weren't what he was looking for. Clark looked back up when he could see no evident damage. "I didn't hurt your...ah..." he stammered, embarrassed but needing to ask. 

"My dick?" Lex laughed again, something the serious man had been doing a lot as of late and always at the most inopportune times. "No, but you did confused it. I've never experienced so many distinct sensations at once. There was no pain but it did take a moment to assimilate but once I did, it was fucking glorious. You have a very talented ass, Clark and you've spoiled me forever. I don't think I could fuck a normal human being again and come." 

"The alien thing doesn't bother you? I mean, you've said it, Lex. I'm not human." 

"And you're not a monster either, Clark." Lex said reading his thoughts. "Of the two of us, I probably garner that description more." 

"Don't believe your own press, Lex." Clark settled back against the headboard and brought Lex with him. The need to comfort was strong. He forgot about feeling bad. "You're a fuzz ball, remember?" 

"Only with you or perhaps...because of you." Lex twisted his lithe body, hooking a leg over his hips, and rested his hands on Clark's collar bones. "Which demonstrates my point exactly. So you're not human, Clark, so what." Lex gave his cheek a brief kiss. "You're special. You're better. And maybe because you are an alien, you have the ability to make me, a Luthor, human. I'd say that makes you 'super' human." 

"Really?" 

"Fuck if I know." Lex smiled broadly. "I'm winging it here, sunshine. All I know is that I love you, whatever you are and..." Lex paused and blinked. "I don't think I'm scared anymore." 

"Or grossed out?" 

"Hardly." Lex snorted. "Just looking sideways at you, Clark, makes me horny." 

"What if I told you I can still feel your come inside me and it feels like warm butter?" 

"It doesn't hurt, or sting?" Lex swore under his breath. "I should have used a condom. I meant to, Clark. I did. I just...forgot." 

"I would have punched you, if you had, Lex. It feels wonderful. Like it's supposed to be there." Clark said hoping to erase the frown that had appeared on the older man's face. It didn't work. Lex continued to scowl. 

"It's not--doing--anything, is it?" Hesitantly, as if afraid of being burned, Lex touched the skin just below Clark's navel with his fingers. 

"Doing?" Clark asked, confused. "Like what?" 

"How much do you know about your biology, Clark? Are you a male or a female of your species?" 

"Male...I think. I landed here when I was very young. I don't know much about who I am or where I came from. I...oh, wait. Ew, Lex. I'm not pregnant, if that's what you're asking." 

"How do you know?" 

"X-ray vision, remember?" 

"So you've looked?" 

"Well, no but I don't think..." 

"Look, Clark. _Now_." 

To appease Lex, who appeared worried for the first time this evening, Clark focused his vision on his abdomen but had no real idea what he was looking for. What does an alien baby look like anyway? He didn't have a clue. All he knew was that he didn't _feel_ pregnant and that if he was, looking would be unnecessary. He would just know. Know? That meant, oh geez. Clark halted that horrifying thought dead in its tracks. He had enough to deal with. 

"I'm clear, Lex," he said brightly trying to mask his own worry. "You didn't get me." 

"No baby?" The older man's voice was even, his expression, unreadable. 

"Nope, just the regular insides of a happy alien with a trace of his outrageously handsome boyfriend." 

"Just a trace?" Lex asked, one side of his mouth tweaking up. "It felt like more at the time." 

"Well, there was more but I'm...ah...sort of absorbing you." 

The look of wonder on Lex's face was priceless. "I think that's the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me, Clark. Come, here my freaky, alien lover." 

Clark did. 

And soon after, they both did together. 

* * *

"So when did you move into the big house, Clarkbar?" 

"I didn't." Clark took another bite of the sandwich Cook had made for him this morning. He had one more in his knapsack along with a mountain of fruit he couldn't possible eat. It was funny how she was always throwing apples and oranges at him. "It was just a sleepover, Pete." 

"In a rich man's castle?" Pete snorted and snagged an apple from Clark's bag. "Well, I suppose the rich part explains why the county changed its bus route at a moment's notice but what's up with the guy walking you to the gate? I heard in English class, he kissed you good bye." 

Clark choked, but not because it wasn't true. Lex had kissed his ear but to anyone watching from the bus, it would have looked like he was whispering a secret. What had lodged his corn beef on rye is his throat was the fact people were saying he did. It explained the myriad of odd stares he was getting this morning. Clark wasn't sure how that made him feel. 

"No one saw Lex kissing me, Pete," he replied honestly. "Its just gossip." 

"I thought so. I mean the guy's, Lex Luthor." Pete spat like that said it all. "I know he's your friend, but he's older and a bit of a pervert from what I've heard and that's not gossip. My dad's said as much and as a lawyer, he should know. He's dirty. He likes doing...you, know...stuff with guys. You wouldn't let someone like that touch you, would you Clark?" 

"You sound like my father used to, Pete." 

"Why would your father...oh, shit, Clark! Lex? Oh, shit, Clark!" 

This wasn't how Clark had planned on telling Pete he was gay but he couldn't deny the opening. 

"He's in love with me, Pete and there isn't anything perverted about it." Clark said, putting down his sandwich to show he meant business. "I let Lex touch me anywhere and any time he wants to. It isn't dirty. It's hot. You want details?" 

"Ah...what kind of details?" 

"About the sex." 

"You're not a virgin?" 

"No, Pete." 

"You've done _it_ with him?" 

"Yes, that explains the non virgin thing, Pete. Remember?" 

"But he's a guy." 

"So?" 

"Where does he put his...ah....I mean, I know _where_ but does it feel....you know...good?" 

"On a scale from one to ten?" 

"Okay." 

"Sixty-nine." 

"Sixty--oh, shit, Clark!" 

"Yeah." 

"You love him back?" 

"Oh, yeah." 

"Cool." 

And that was the end of his coming out with Pete Ross. 

The idea that Clark knew what it was like to have sex seemed to drown out any further concerns. His virgin friend--by his reaction, Clark was pretty sure he was no matter how much he talked the talk--didn't care who he'd had sex with, just that he was a lucky bastard who had. Clark wasn't certain how much the love part had sunk in. 

They talked about football after that. 

* * *

"Did Clark tell you?" 

Jonathon and Clark were out doing chores, while he and Martha sat at the kitchen table lingering after dinner. This time alone with his lover's mother was one of Lex's new guilty pleasures. He ate supper at home as rarely as Clark slept nights at the farm. 

"Tell me what?" Lex asked and then blew a cooling breath over the rim of his coffee cup. It wasn't about the alien thing. Martha already knew Clark had confessed all to him a couple of weeks ago. Keeping with tradition, they had told the elder Kents over dinner the following evening. It had been spaghetti with meatballs that night. 

"In a week, on the twenty first, there's the annual Christmas dance at the school." Seeing his surprise, Martha gave him a soft look. "He didn't, did he?" 

"Does he usually go?" Lex wracked his brain trying to remember last year but came up blank. All that came to mind during that time period was his father trying to screw him out of LexCorp. Lionel had shown his hand too early and had been supremely unsuccessful. It hadn't been a very merry Christmas in the Luthor household that year. 

"He went with Chloe last year--as friends. I think he was already interested in you by that time." Martha added kindly, obviously trying to soften the blow that her son had once dated girls. Did he mention he loved this woman? 

"I can't go with him. Even if people knew the nature of our relationship, it would be bending the small town rules of propriety to the snapping point. Clark knows that. So he didn't mention the dance." 

There. That sounded good. 

"What about going as a chaperone? As I recall, that was once an idea of yours." 

Snorting his coffee through his nose, Lex swallowed the burn and nearly shattered his cup when he dropped it back down on the table. "And watch half the high school drool over him?" His guard was down, but with Martha, he was safe. "What the hell was I thinking?" 

"That you want to be with him in any way you can. That you want to share his life, not alter it." Martha's voice had softened sweetly. Lex was surprised she hadn't called him 'dear'. 

"You're right. I want him to have 'normal' but only because it's important to him. Me? I don't give a rat's ass. I like his differences. Just being near him makes me..." Lex choked and sputtered to a stop. "I'm irrevocably in love your son. A lost cause." He looked at his table mate and gave her a small, depreciative smile. 'But you've always known that, haven't you." 

"From the moment I asked you to court him, I knew instantly that you loved him. You were pretty obvious about it, Lex." 

"I was not," he huffed ineffectually. Indignant didn't work on Martha any better than it did on Clark. The only discernable difference was that Martha only smiled brighter at him while her son for some unfathomable reason, usually took it as signal to jump his bones. 

"Are you taking him to the Christmas party at the plant?" Martha asked, changing the subject. 

"I haven't decided. It's not really a party for me, a lot smoozing and kissing cheeks, you understand." She did of course. She knew the drill. Martha was still Lionel's assistant. "He might get bored." 

"Or your employees might think he's your date." Martha corrected, hitting the mark right on the money. She was too good for the old man. If it wasn't so important to keep tabs on Lionel, Lex would have the trenchantly efficacious Martha Kent working for him--at twice the salary and weekends off. 

"You think I should?" he asked, implicitly trusting her judgment. 

"Why not? Alright, I know why not but you have to start somewhere. Clark's already been suffering rumors at school that he's gay and--" 

Lex's chest tightened painfully. "Suffering?" he croaked. Was this something else his lover was withholding from him? 

"Oh love," Martha quickly took his trembling hands in hers. "It just a figure of speech, dear. I'm sorry. He's okay, really." When Lex started to breathe like a normal human being and not a small rodent, she let go his hands. "His classmates have been gossiping, some of it hasn't been nice but I don't think Clark's been bothered too much by it. He hasn't kept that from you." 

"No, I know about the talk. The dirty looks. I don't think he wanted to, but Clark has told me." Lex took a sip of his coffee to wet his parched throat. "I also know he doesn't respond either way to it." 

"He will have to, if you take him to your Christmas party. He'll have to stop hedging and make a stand." 

Having a cohort made his heart beat a little easier. Martha wanted the same thing he did. Lex allowed himself to feel better and quipped, "Are you trying out your own son, Martha Kent?" 

"No, I'm trying to get him one step closer to married." 

"Oh." Lex started. Martha was talking about the big picture, something he was well versed in. As well she should. She wasn't just his friend and coffee buddy. Sometimes Lex forgot that. She was Clark's mother. She had every fucking right. Martha took a sip of her drink while looking at him with something that resembled doubt. 

"You are still thinking about that, aren't you, Lex?" 

"Saturday, April 5." Lex announced happily answering her question and giving himself a headshake. Besides assuaging his good friend's fears, it felt good to tell someone other than his lawyer and the caterers about the wedding. With the exception of Enrique, his staff merely suspected. They knew there was to be a party at the castle but Lex had not told them the reason for the occasion. However, it was possible the three tiered, white cake he'd asked Cook to bake could have been a give away. 

The lot of them had been smiling excessively as of late. And his bedroom never lacked for flannel, fruit or flowers. Even during the rare instances when his raven haired angel wasn't snuggled into his side, Lex felt like he was in some biblical garden each night he went to sleep. 

"Oh, Lex, really?" There were burgeoning tears in her eyes and like sirens, they called to ones in his own. The Kents, no matter which one, always managed to appeal to the sap in him. It was a fault he didn't know he was prone to until he moved to Smallville. Only a sharp sniff through his nose kept his embarrassing romantism at bay. 

"It's been arranged. All I have to do now," Lex ginned weakly, "is propose." 

"Ah, the hard part." Martha said, reading him like a book. 

"Just the start of it. Granting I find the courage to go down on one knee and Clark accepts, there's still Lionel. It scares the hell out of me I haven't heard one peep from him about the man I've been squiring around Metropolis lately." 

"I expect it every time he calls me into his office, but he hasn't said anything to me either." 

"He must know. I don't hide what Clark is to me in the city. Christ, I barely hide it here." 

And he didn't. 

Lex didn't touch Clark overtly, no necking or petting but he was glued to his hip when ever they were together in public. It was not unusual to see them sitting on their favorite couch at the Talon--the one in the corner away from walk through traffic, rubbing shoulders and whispering, their lips a hair's breadth away from a kiss. And Lex did pick Clark up in one flashy car or another after school most days when work allowed. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together should be able to discern that they where more than casual friends. They were lovers. Martha was right. It was blatantly obvious how he felt. The people of Smallville had to be morons not to see what he and Clark meant to each other. 

"If there's anyone here that has reason to oppose this union..." Martha said in an officiously low voice and one hand over her breast before trailing off with a shoulder shrug and a sigh. 

"Oh, Christ. That would be the blind bastard's style. He'd love to ruin my wedding day." 

"You'll have to head him off, Lex." 

"I know." Lex drew a deep breath through his nose. "I will." 

"So when? Clark, not Lionel." 

"Is a ring at Christmas considered bad luck?" 

"You bought him a ring?" 

"No, I had my mother's altered and no, I'm not telling you how. You'll have to wait to see it on Clark's finger." 

"One or two? You can tell me that much." 

"Two. Both for him. One for when he says yes, and one for when he says I do." 

"An engagement ring will raise a few eyebrows, Lex. I guess you had better invite him to your Christmas party." 

"Yes, I suppose I will." 

Each wrapped up in their own dreams _and_ nightmares, they finished their coffee in contemplative silence. 

* * *

"Did you tell him?" 

"No, Jonathon. We talked about something happier over coffee. Lex has enough to worry about." 

"If it's about Clark, it won't matter. He'll want to know. He _should_ know, Martha." 

"Because he should be aware of how much his affection for Clark is going to cost our family business?" 

"Hell yeah, and dammit woman, before you go all righteous on me, hear me out. I'm not heading for a told you so. I think Lex should know because he'll want to the right thing. He'll want to help." 

"You'll take money from a Luthor?" 

"No, but I will take financial advice from my future son-in-law. If he takes Clark to that office party of his, our produce is going to go sour as fast as attitudes. Now I know with some people our son's alternate life style isn't going to matter but we're barely getting by as it is. We can't afford to lose even one order." 

"Ah...and Lex knows people in the city." 

"He does take Clark to a lot of fancy restaurants and I thought maybe..." 

"He'd help you expand into the Metropolis market." 

"Well, it is a family business and since the boy is going to marry our son, he should do something _productive_ to help out. God knows he's a disaster in the barn. A ranch in Montana, my ass." 

"I'll talk to him...but in the new year. Let's have a happy Christmas first." 

"Works for me." 

"Yes, with all that he is, I'm certain he will." 

* * *

"This just came by messenger, sir." 

Lex glanced up from the Smallville High's student files when Enrique entered the library and then erring on the side of prudence, closed the window on his computer. When he saw the unmarked manila envelope in the tall man's hand, Lex signed off the network all together. He'd been waiting for this and later suddenly became a more officious time to decide which university scholarship Clark was going to be miraculously awarded for the fall term. 

With a look of unmistakable sympathy, Enrique gingerly placed the envelope on his desk and then left the room without comment. Leaning back in his chair, Lex tented his fingers under his chin and stared at the seemly innocuous piece of mail. 

It was from Lionel. Had to be. A response from his father was long overdue. Sucking at the inside his bottom lip, Lex considered the timing. 

It was late but perhaps it had been calculated to be so. It was possible that whatever warning the plain brown envelope held, had been delayed purposely to give he and Clark time to become closer. Separation would hurt more. The lesson would be sharper and not forgotten nor repeated. Lionel may be a heartless bastard, but he was also extremely clever. 

Lex leaned forward and flicked a corner with his fingers. The eight by eleven harbinger had weight and stiffness. Photographs then. Predicable. 

For a moment Lex considered tossing the envelope unopened into the fire place--pictures of him fucking Clark would not deter him from his course--but curiosity won out. Lex slit the end open with a neat fingernail and dumped the contents on his desk. 

There was only one photograph, a black and white with a yellow post it note affixed to the center. Without reading the small square, he removed it, stuck it absently on the lower corner of his flat screen monitor and scanned the picture. 

"Fucking incredible," was his immediate response. His second was, "You've been holding on to this one for a while, haven't you, old man." 

Edged in white and displayed artistically in monochrome, was Lex clutching the back of Clark's neck in the Grand Tier Room of the Metropolis Concert Hall and exploring the depths of his sweet mouth with his tongue. Their first public kiss, ah yes. Impeccable timing. Kudos to the photographer. Caressing the shiny finish fondly with a fingertip, Lex remembered what he'd been thinking at the time and couldn't help the resulting smile. 

Sex, love and proprietary rights. 

It was the night Lex had vowed to claim Clark Kent both in body and soul. 

"Whatcha looking at, Lex?" 

School must be out. Winter break had begun. Lex looked up to see his fellow subject in sepia enter the library. 

"Us." 

Clark dropped his knapsack and jacket in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk and came around to hover over Lex's shoulder. 

"Wow, Lex. That's really hot." Clark slid his big hands down the front of Lex's puce dyed dress shirt, skimming lightly over his groin. "Where'd you get it?" he asked before kissing his temple using more tongue than lips. 

"It's a present from my father." Lex said evenly trying to ignore the electric charge Clark's mouth cycled through his body. Sex could wait. Shake it off, Alexander, said a voice he'd not heard in a long while. This was something that needed discussing now. 

"Oh?" Another sloppy kiss beside his eye and then, a predatory bite to his earlobe. Clark was getting worked up and it was effectively obliterating Lex's urge for conversation. Oh, when had the boy become a man? The picture slipped through his fingers when Clark cupped his balls and ran a thumb over his growing erection. "Funny, I don't remember seeing him that night, Lex." 

"It was taken by a professional, Clark. Lionel doesn't do his own dirty work." Lex didn't bother to mention that blind men made horrible photographers. A horny farm boy was not a logical farm boy. When Clark's dick was up, his IQ invariably went down. 

"You think the picture is dirty?" Clark asked, his voice low and throaty sending chills down Lex's spine. 

"No, not at all. In fact, I'm thinking about getting it framed. It would look good on my desk at work or maybe blown up on the wall over my bed." 

"Well, I think it's kind of dirty." Abruptly, Lex's chair was swung around and he was hauled unceremoniously to his feet. "And sexy." Clark added, pulling him close for a yet another wet kiss but this time square on the mouth. Giving up on talking, Lex allowed the eager boy to manhandle him backwards on to the desk. 

Since Clark had discovered the joys of gay sex, he'd been insatiable and rarely took no for answer. Not than Lex had any desire to refuse him--he'd rather fuck his beautiful farm boy than breathe--but he did understand that when Clark's quick silver desire rose high, any meaningful discussion had to wait until his not so normal lover was filled with and absorbing his come. The last part was kinky. But it was Lex's kind of kinky. 

The idea that Clark's alien biology allowed him to incorporate something of himself directly into his system thrilled Lex. Since he couldn't mark his lover with a hickey or the raking of his nails down his broad back failed to leave red, swollen welts, the strange mingling of their DNA was the next best thing. No, that was a lie. It was better. With a smile, Lex would service this beautifully altered boy any time he asked and always would. 

Clark didn't like discussing it, he hedged and hawed when ever Lex brought it up but the possibility that they were striving towards something other than orgasm intrigued Lex. Clark would not allow him to wear a condom so perhaps the Luthor line wouldn't stop with him. There was nothing to stop it. Barebacked and raw, Lex happily injected him at least once daily and unlike Clark, was enamored with the potential consequences of his seminal infusion. 

"Oh, god, Lex...I need you inside me. I want to hear you come..." Clark said while nibbling a delicate chain of bruises around his neck through his opened shirt collar. Lex wasn't an indestructible alien. His pale skin marked just fine. He knew Clark, although the young man had yet to admit it, loved physically marking Lex as his territory. "Fuck me...scream for me...please, oh please...scream, Lex...it's so beautiful...I need to hear you scream..." 

The younger man was pleading between his legs, holding Lex's hands over his head and pumping his cock against him in long, sure strokes. It was ironic. The position was the perfect image of topping although Lex doubted Clark was any state to notice the subtle, backwards humour. 

"Are you sure you don't want to be in me?" Lex asked, throwing it out there just because. "I'd be a tight fuck, Clark, almost virginal it's been so long and happened so rarely. You might find you'd like it." Lex was starting to think he might too. 

"No," Clark said adamantly and then let go of Lex's hands to reach over his head for his knapsack. Pinned to his glass desk by six foot four of horny teenager, Lex watched helplessly as Clark fished and came out with of all things, lube? 

"Where the hell did you get that?" he asked surprised. 

"The pharmacy." The fog from Clark's hazel eyes cleared as his brows furrowed. "Why?" 

"You just walked right in and asked Mr Pharmacy Guy," Lex didn't know the white coated gentleman's name. He'd been in the store but Enrique always carried the shopping basket. "For a bottle of Astroglide?" 

"No, I got it from the shelf." Clark bumped foreheads with him affectionately. "I also managed to buy some Chapstick all by myself too, Lex." 

"Very funny, farm boy." Lex snarled feeling a little stupid at once again being caught unawares by the dastardly Kentian humour. 

Clark grinned. "Yeah, I have my moments." The pleasant curve of his mouth turned wicked. "Want to see another? I've been practicing at home when I don't sleep over. It's new." 

"I suppose," Lex agreed cautiously. Foresworn was forewarned. Right? 

"Hold on." 

Before he could ask on to what, he was naked from the waist down, on top of and lying between Clark's similarly unclad legs. Through the transparency of his desk, Lex could see their pants, socks and shoes in a pile on the rug. Crowning the top was the black and white photograph. 

"Well, that was interesting." Lex said once his heart dropped out of his throat. 

"And helpful." 

"Uh-huh. And are you all greased up for me as well?" 

"No, I like it when you do it." 

"Ah, so I still have some usefulness." 

"Leeex...." 

"Hey, I can have moments too, farm boy." 

Clark rolled his eyes. And then his hips. 

"Shut up and fuck me, Lex." 

* * *

"Christ, sunshine. You feel so good inside." Lex said purred while lapping at his neck like it was a bowl of milk. 

"Please, Lex...harder." he begged in reply. Clark was ready to come, he was tingling all over and burning up but if Lex was still making sense, he obviously wasn't. He needed the other man to go ballistic and lose it. Screw these long lazy thrusts. Lex was concentrating and Clark needed a pounding. 

"Then pull me." Lex leaned forward, his hips moving in a slow figure eights and kissed Clark's opened mouth. "You know what I'm talking about. Grab my dick with your ass and pull me in. Do it to me, Clark...do it...do it..." 

What his lover was asking for, Clark couldn't perform on command. He didn't have that kind of control over his extra alien muscles. Contrary to what he thought, Lex was the one that spurred the cascading spasms. Like an orgasm, it was involuntary response to lovemaking. It happened when it happened. Clark was, however, happy when it did. 

"Oh yeah...like that...oh fuck...yeah!" Lex shouted as he gripped Clark's thighs and drove fiercely into him, unleashing from his deceptively slight form all the immense power his strong willed heritage afforded him. 

Yes, very happy. Clark hooked his ankles at the base of Lex's back to bring him closer. 

"I'm...oh, Christ...I'm...I'm..." Lex cried out, stabbing at Clark with his dick like a madman. His steel gray eyes had rolled back in his head and he was babbling at the top of his lungs. If Lex saw himself this strung out, Clark would bet he'd hate it, calling it undignified but to Clark it was magical. He loved seeing his controlling lover snap and go crazy with lust. It was so incredibly hot. Now he was really ready to come and when a fine boned hand fisted his cock, he did. 

"Lex!" he managed to squeak out as his seed burst forth between them. While Lex's thrummed like the strings of an electric guitar, Clark's vocal cords froze when he came. Even when he felt the sweet warmth of Lex coat his bowls, he never emitted more than a satisfied gasp or moan until it was over and his boyfriend was, as he was presently doing, wheezing on top on his chest. 

"One of these days I swear you're going to fucking kill me, farm boy." 

"You always recover, Lex." Clark chided finding his voice easily. He was filled and fulfilled. The aftermath of sex always generated a low level hum in his body. Unlike the boneless man draped over him, lethargy didn't hit until after his insides had completely soaked up Lex's precious essence. 

"Barely." Lex snorted, trying to raise himself on his hands. His sweaty palms slipped on the smooth surface of the glass desk but Clark caught him before he crashed. With care he gathered up the man he loved beyond all else into his arms and moved them both to the comfort of the leather couch. 

"Sleep." Clark said, once again cradling Lex to his chest. 

"No, not yet." Lex tugged at his sticky purple dress shirt--the only bit of clothing Clark had allowed him to keep--trying to straighten out the creases before giving up after a few half hearted tries with a disgusted sigh. Clark would never say so for fear of offending him but he found the older man's fastidious adorable. 

"You want to talk about the picture, right?" 

Far from drowsy, Lex finally settled on his side between Clark and the back of the couch. "It was a warning from my father, Clark." 

"I don't see how, Lex. I mean, we were both had our clothes on, no naked butts or anything." Clark brushed his knuckles along the side of Lex's jaw and down to the rising bruises long the base his neck. The older man's eyes closed briefly at the light caress. "I thought it was nice." 

"I believe that was the point. The picture wasn't crass or obscene because our relationship isn't. It's an interpretation, or perhaps a mirror is a more accurate term." Lex's hand slid down the front of Clark's shirt to reached under and lay flat against his belly. "Like this, this incredible thing we do together," Lex whispered, his tone dropping into hushed softness before perking up again. "It's about love, Clark, not sex. And by sending me such an obviously romantic illustration, Lionel is announcing that's he's aware of the difference." 

"Are you sure? That's pretty twisted. Why wouldn't he just come right out and say he knows how you feel about me?" 

"Finesse." 

"Whatever. Okay, so he knows I'm more than your sex slave, so what? It's not really a secret. Geez, Lex, even Pete knows you're in love with me." 

Lex's fawn coloured eyebrows rose. "He does?" 

"Yeah, it sort of came out when I did a couple of weeks ago. I told you about that, remember?" 

"Like when you told me about the Christmas party at the school? It's tonight, I believe." 

Sometimes it was a pain in the ass having such a smart boyfriend. Clark felt Lex's long, lank body go rigid against his. Oh, geez. And a prickly, sensitive one too. 

"I didn't want to go." Clark said weakly. He knew the explanation wouldn't pass muster, but it was better than telling the truth. Lex was too fearless to understand. 

"Uh-huh." Lex nodded slowly and then rolled out of the niche between Clark's side and couch to tower above him perched on ramrod straight arms. If Clark turned his head either way, he could kiss a pearly knob of wrist but resisted. Lex was in snarky mode. The intimate gesture probably wouldn't be appreciated. "My party at the plant is tomorrow." Lex snarled, his head dipping and long neck, ringed in love bites, curving in a graceful arc downwards. Clark licked his lips and shuddered. Running his tongue over those pretty bruises probably wouldn't be prudent at the moment either. "Do you want to refrain from attending that social event with me as well, farm boy?" 

Lex was royally pissed and he was getting turned on. Seeing his lover meant business, Clark willed his erection to wilt but even his super powers couldn't stop it from hardening and curving up behind Lex's butt. 

"I thought we were talking about the picture from your father." Clark said evasively, having trouble meeting those iron blue eyes. 

"We are, my beautiful but oh so hesitant love but that's one harbinger of doom I've haven't figured out yet." 

"Oh, right." Clark huffed while trying to translate 'harbinger of doom' into normal speak. "And this one you have?" 

"You're afraid of taking the final step, Clark." His perfect white teeth bared, Lex sat up to straddle him and then, crossed his arms. His shirt was a bunched sticky mess on his stomach and it spoke to how truly angry Lex was that he didn't try to smooth it out. Lex glared down at him. "Walking away from someone who calls you Lex Luthor's whore is infinitely easier than turning around and saying 'yes, I am', isn't it?" 

"You were the one that told me to avoid confrontation, _Lex_." 

"And you were the one that told me you could take care of yourself, _Clark_." 

"And I can. Look, Lex, if anyone came up to me and asked nicely if I was your boyfriend, I wouldn't lie." Clark said speaking his heart. It hadn't happened and he wasn't looking forward to the day it did--Clark didn't relish being ostracized any more than the next guy but it was the truth. His love was so big and so totally huge, there was no way he could deny it. 

"Bullshit." Lex spat into his face and then pushed at Clark's chest trying to rise. 

Okay, enough was enough. If he believed, the snarky, spoiled rich boy had better too. 

Before Mr Sensitive could disengage from his body, Clark lifted him with a roll of his spine and threw him back on his cute but indignant ass on the couch. "I would, Lex." Clark seated himself heavier over Lex's hips when he started to buck. "I'd look them in the eye and tell them even though sometimes he's as dense as tree bark, he's my whole fucking world!" he yelled into the startled 'o' of Lex's face. "Otherwise, it's none of their friggin business! Screw'em if they can't recognize true love when they see it!" 

The seconds passed in eerie silence as they stared at each other, their eyes locked in an orbital stand off. Joined in the battle of will, were their cocks. Both were tall and defiant and pulsing side by side in tune with their ragged breaths and the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner. The tension was mounting. Escalating, becoming brittle. They were either going to tear each other to bits in a moment or fuck each other senseless. 

"Marry me, Clark Kent." Lex said deadpan, not moving a muscle on his finely crafted face. 

Clark blinked first. "What?" 

"You heard me, farm boy. Make it permanent. Be my husband. Spend the rest of your life with me." 

"You're proposing? We're fighting and you're proposing?" Clark shook himself in an attempt to wrap his head around what had just happened. The man who used drama like most people sprinkled salt, had struck again. "Oh, geez, Lex," he moaned. "Can't you do anything ordinary?" 

"At this most auspicious of times I will not point out how incongruous that statement is coming from you, alien boy but humbly and patiently await your answer to my most heartfelt question." 

"Pretentious bastard." 

"Yes, I am and always will be. It's in the blood. But I am also in love enough with you to hope you won't hold it against me." 

"I won't, Lex. By now, I'm kind of used to it." 

Clark waited for that beautiful twist of a smile Lex usually sported when he tried to say something funny but it didn't come. Lex's mouth remained straight lined. What passed for a heart in Clark's alien body, stopped. Good god, he meant it. The proposal wasn't a diversionary tactic to gain the upper hand. Not that Clark had really thought it was, Lex didn't joke about the serious stuff, but... 

"Clark...sunshine..." Long fingers tip by perfectly buffed nails fluttered up to clutch at his shirt. "Answer me... _please_." 

Oh, damn. This had to be real. Lex Luthor didn't beg either. 

"You want to _marry_ me?" Clark asked, checking to be sure. 

"That was the point of asking." The crooked smile was there now, but Clark barely noticed. He was too freaked. "However, I did plan on doing it on one knee and not flat on my back." 

Marriage. Oh, geez. 

They were two guys and this was Kansas. Would it even be legal? And if it were, was Clark ready to bind himself to one person forever. Lex was the only man he'd ever been with sexually and he was after all, only seventeen years old. He was just beginning his journey into adulthood. What if there was somebody better out there? And holy cow. What would his parent's think? They been pretty cool so far about the dating but marriage? His father was sure to burst a gasket. And then there was school. If he thought he stood out now, what would it be like being the only married senior in his graduating class? 

"Yes, Lex." 

"Yes?" Lex repeated, alerting Clark to the fact that he'd spoken aloud _and_ was now suddenly engaged to the hottest man in the western hemisphere. 

Engaged to be married. Engaged to be married to Lex Luthor. Married to Lex Luthor. His husband. His partner. His...mate. 

Yes, his mate. 

Yes. Yes. Yes. 

"God, Lex." Clark moaned, catching his intended up in his lap and falling back to sit up right on the couch. 

Nothing could ever frighten him if he could have this. Being blackballed, and labeled as gay didn't matter. He could brave the insults now. He had Lex's proposal of love to shield him. It wasn't a pretty poem or a vow made in the heat of passion. It was a promise of forever. For the first time in his life, Clark truly was invincible. There was nobody else who could make him feel this way. 

This. Was. It. 

"Yes, Lex" Clark kissed into the sweet spot beside his lover's right eye, brushing his tears along his smooth cheek. "I'll marry you." 

Lex curled his lanky body to rest his head on Clark's chest. His shoulder fitted under Clark's like a piece in a puzzle. "I love you, farm boy and I promise to do everything in my power to protect you." 

"I know, Lex." Clark pulled his mate to him like a blanket. "You all ready have." 

* * *

"So what do we say when they call tomorrow, and you know they will, Martha. Clark's going to the plant party tonight is going to set not a few tongues wagging. Gabe will probably be the first on the phone come sunrise." 

"Just what Lex said, dear. That we are fully aware of his romantic interest in our son and we don't have a problem with it. We tell them the truth." 

"The truth. Why is it that seemed easier six months back?" 

"It really shouldn't be all that hard now. We're fortunate. Our son's in love with someone who loves him back." 

"A rich, successful someone." 

"Yes, and if Lex were a woman..." 

"He is, sort of." 

"You've lost me, Jonathon." 

"I know it's not politically correct to assign gender to a homosexual couple but Lex does seem have the softer role. He is smaller than Clark...and weaker." 

"For crying out loud, Jonathon. Lex is six feet tall. Not a giant compared to the rest of the men in this family, but he does tower over most people. And as far as weaker, I'm not even going to bother answering that one." 

"I know all that, woman! That's not what I'm trying to say!' 

"Then what?" 

"Oh, damn. I saw bruises, Martha." 

"Bruises?" 

"Nasty ones. On his neck. Clark hurts him, Martha. Lex hides it mostly, but this morning, when I couldn't talk him out of helping me in the barn, he undid his collar when he got hot and...I saw." 

"Did...did you confront him?" 

"Yeah, but he brushed it off, did his collar up right quick and said it was nothing, that it sometimes happens when Clark's a little on edge. Hell, Martha, if those were nothing, I hate to see what our son does to the rest of his body when he's really worked up." 

"You're scaring me, Jonathon." 

"Don't mean to but...what if it's Lex we should be looking out for and not Clark? What if our boy's too much for him? He's a Luthor, bullheaded and stubborn as they come. I don't think he's going to admit failure in any capacity. He's not going to back away just because something's not as easy as he first thought. Lex might need saving despite himself." 

"Otherwise he'll suffer the abuse quietly out of pride? It's more than that. It has to be. Lex loves Clark, Jonathon. He plans on proposing to him at Christmas." 

"You're kidding. Really? How long have you known that?" 

"A week. It was sort of a surprise. And maybe it's not abuse. Maybe Lex likes what Clark does to him. Have you thought of that?" 

"Likes being hurt?" 

"How do you know it hurts? Lex has told me himself he likes Clark's...ah...differences." 

"Well, pain during sex would be definitely classed as different." 

"If you'd like, I'll speak to Lex, make sure he's okay?" 

"No, no, Martha. That's my job. It's a man thing. I'll speak to the boy, see how he's doing. But I swear, if he's even the least bit scared of Clark, I'm calling this whole courtship thing off. That was the point after all, making sure nobody got hurt, wasn't it?" 

"Yes, dear. It was. It just turned around a little differently than I expected." 

"Don't worry yet. You could still be right. This pain thing however weird, might be mutual. I'll catch Lex tonight when he comes to pick Clark up for the party. Take him out to the barn for a little chat. It shouldn't be hard. Gods knows as much as I would like to, I can't keep the boy out of there." 

"Cross your fingers." 

"Crossed and tied, love. Crossed and tied." 

* * *

"If you'd lend me a pair of coveralls, I'll feed the cows their straw." 

"Hay, Lex. Hay." Jonathon winced and dragged a hand down his face. "Cows eat hay not straw." 

"Hay not straw. Noted, Mr Kent. Now about those coveralls..." 

"Sit, boy." 

Frowning, Jonathon Kent pointed to a bale of something coniferous, and as if on cue Lex's knees immediately unbuckled and his ass slammed down on the tightly wrapped bundle. Lex studied the ground and then quickly jammed his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. Stray pieces of barn debris had adhered themselves to the hem of his black pants and he was not about to look like a faggot poof by brushing them clean. Clark's father was a man's man, a good old boy who drank his beer from the bottle and would see it as a weakness. 

"I take it we're not out here to do chores, then?" 

"No, Clark did them earlier." 

Lex chanced a look up, squinting respectfully. "You're not hiding a shotgun under your jacket, are you?" he said jokingly but...not. 

"What? Hell, no. I stopped carrying Bessie around months ago." Seeing his jaw drop, the older man laughed and took a seat beside him. "I'm kidding, Lex," he said, bumping an alarmingly large shoulder into his somewhat smaller one. 

If Lex didn't know better, Jonathan Kent, could be Clark's biological father. The hair was a different shade but along with the same warped sense of humour, they were both freakishly huge and built as solidly as the proverbial shithouse. 

"Then is this has to be The Speech?" 

"Speech?" 

"You know, the one where you tell me that if I hurt your son, you'll string me up by my own ass hairs." 

"You have hair?" 

"Mr Kent..." 

"No, no, no. Not The Speech. But it is about hurting." 

Jonathan ran a finger around his neck and smiled depreciatively. Lex understood the pantomime immediately. The hickeys. Ah, yes. While following him out to barn this morning in an effort to demonstrate to the older man he was 'real folks', he'd been careless. Lex's gloved fingers went involuntarily to his neatly buttoned shirt collar. 

"It's not deliberate. And I don't tell him to stop." Lex dropped his hand and eyes to his knees. "I...I enjoy the way Clark kisses me." 

"Uh-huh. Martha said that might be the case. Is the bruising confined to your neck?" 

"Christ," Lex swore softly into his chest. The Speech would have been easier to suffer than this. Lex was tempted to announce that Clark had agreed to marry him just to change the subject. Clark couldn't hate him forever for breaking his own promise to wait until Christmas to break the news, could he? 

"Look at me, boy!" Jonathon demanded sharply. Almost wrenching his neck, Lex obeyed immediately. 

Although embarrassed by his puppy dog obedience--he'd didn't jump for anybody--Lex was also somewhere deep inside faintly amused at his reaction. Even Lionel hadn't been able to evoke this kind of instant submissiveness from him in years. Before speaking, he swallowed the perverse smile that threatened along with the cobwebs in his throat. "I don't think this something you want to hear, Mr Kent." 

"No, probably not but it's something I need to ask. Clark marks you. Okay. He's a passionate boy. Always has been. And believe it or not, even a country hick like me understands why that might be something you'd both enjoy. What I need to know is the extent of it. So, tell me. Does he bruise you in other places?" 

"Yes, but not always." Lex answered candidly. This was not a conversation he could bluff his way out of--Jonathan Kent had an honesty that was home grown and could spot a liar at a hundred paces--so there was little point in trying. 

"Where?" 

"Besides my neck, my wrists, my arms and sometimes my hips when he...when he...oh, Christ. He likes to pin me down." Wait. That sounded wrong. Lex sputtered and tried again. "Clark's a very affectionate lover, you see. He likes to hold me near when I'm...you know, so depending on the position when he lets go, if his legs drop from my shoulders when he...or when I...fuck!" Lex pounded his knees and stared helplessly at his inquisitor. "Mr Kent, I cannot tell you _this_!" 

A strong hand landed on Lex's shoulder. It was warm and comforting. "He hurts you when he climaxes? Is that it, son?" 

"Yesss." Lex whooshed out, his breath making white plumes in the cold night air. He was inanely glad he didn't have to say the word 'comes' out loud to Clark's father. 

"Do you like it, Lex?" 

"Sir?" Please, oh please tell me, Jonathon did not just ask if he liked fucking his son. Lex felt bile rise in his throat. 

"The pain, Lex. Do you...get off on it?" 

"Oh, of course, the pain," he choked. "I don't generally notice it...until afterwards. And I heal quickly so the effects are passing." Lex turned on the bale so he was facing Jonathon head on. If he could not tell, he could show. 

Reaching up, he moved aside his scarf, let it's tasseled ends fall to his chest, loosened his tie and undid the top two buttons of shirt. Curling his fingers in his collar he peeled back the starched white material to reveal the evidence of Clark's passion. Only pale yellow smudges showed. "As you can see, Clark does not damage me permanently." 

With his calloused fingertips, Jonathon boldly touched what was left of the angry, purple welts from this morning. His rough touch smeared the makeup Lex had applied to conceal them. 

Lex gritted his teeth and tried to remain completely still during the clumsy examination. Under his suit his skin was alive with shivers. He been fondled by a hundred men this way a thousand times but that was history. This liberty he granted only to Clark now and his body seemed to know it. It gone through a rebirth of sorts and was rebelling at the unfamiliar touch. Jonathan dropped his hand quickly when Lex finally gave in to a shudder. 

"So you _don't_ like it." 

Oh, fuck. The man was like a starving dog with a bone. 

"That's not entirely true. I do, in a way." While putting his shirt collar to back rights and neatly folding his scarf around his throat, Lex gauged Jonathon for signs of disgust. When he saw only impatience, he promptly continued. "Clark marks me because he _loves_ me and during sex he can't help but to show it passionately and yes, sometimes he does go overboard. What you can't see is that he can also be very gentle." 

"To make up for what he's done?" 

"No. If he knew, I'm certain he wouldn't touch me at all. Clark is so tenderhearted, he'd be appalled to discover he'd injured me while we were loving each other. Mr Kent, please. I don't care about the bruises. A little pain on the outside is secondary to how glorious he makes me feel on the in. And I _do_ enjoy the hickeys," he added brightly. "The rest is not a deterrent enough to prevent me from making loving to your son. It's a non-issue." 

"But is it a necessary evil?" The hand on his shoulder tightened. "Now son, you're going to have tell me the complete and utter truth here. Does he frighten you?" 

"Clark? No. Never. Besides, I understand." 

"Understand what?" 

"That it will get better. That in time, Clark will learn control. And if he doesn't, I'm certain I can. Pain has never been a big part of my sexual repertoire but I have indulged in a scene or two in the past. Rough play is not completely foreign to me. If done properly and with the right motivation, it can be...ah...rewarding for both parties." 

"You'll change your entire make up for him?" 

"No, he'll do it for me." Lex laughed softly. "He already has. Six months ago I wouldn't have been this absurdly shy about talking about my sex life with another man." 

"Well, I am the boy's father." 

"It wouldn't have mattered. I've done worse. Much worse and not cared." 

"That's not a ringing endorsement, Lex." 

"No, I don't supposed it is but I do not intend to hide either the good or the bad about myself to the parents of the most important person in my life. I want you to see who I am. I will not cheat you with lies. You raised that big hunk of boyish wonderful I love so much and did so incredibly well. You deserve nothing less than the truth." 

"Oh, geez, Lex." 

"Ah, that's where he gets it from." 

"Gets what?" 

"His charm." 

* * *

Sitting alone at a table in corner, holding a red plastic cup of spiced punch, Clark let his dinner settle and played voyeur. He was having a surprisingly good time. 

The plant cafeteria was Christmas nightmare. Lex had allowed the employees decorate the room themselves telling Clark it was good for moral and increased productivity. 

Armed with a LexCorp platinum card, the Social Committee had raided Fordham's of every set of white mini lights, every plastic Santa centerpiece, and a sundry of fake holly, garland and mistletoe. The natural beauty of snow falling outside the windows was nearly obliterated by synthetic white crap spelling out the season's greetings on the glass. Even Clark's small town sensibilities were offended. In a curious reversal of roles, Lex had been delighted when they walked in. 

The turkey dinner however, had made up for the cheesy atmosphere. Cook had overseen its preparation. Clark had eaten his and most of Lex's. Clark looked through the crowd of partiers for the older man. After the plates had been cleared, he'd removed his double breasted jacket, folded up his shirt cuffs and gone off to mingle. Smoozing Clark had called it. Public Relations, Lex had corrected with an affectionate pinch to his chin. 

In preparation for slow dances and midnight gropes, the lights had been lowered. Clark couldn't see Lex in the sickly glow of the white mini-lights and battery illuminated Santas. 

"Enjoying yourself, Clark?" Glass in hand, Gabe Sullivan took a seat beside him. His breath told Clark he been imbibing freely of the open bar and would be riding home in one of the mini-vans Lex had hired for the evening as taxi service. 

"Yes, sir. It's a good party." Clark said, giving the same polite answer he'd given to everyone who'd stopped briefly at his table. There had been a lot. Clark was smoozing as much as Lex but Gabe had been the first to join him. 

"Here on a school project or scouting employment opportunities? The staff are wondering." 

"No, I'm here with Lex." Clark announced proudly. He was coming out to the plant manager and didn't care. He wasn't one bit afraid of being called queer and was kind of having fun. "He invited me to come with him." 

"As his escort?" 

Clark finally spotted the missing Luthor across the room standing with group of giggling women suspiciously near a piece of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. Lex acknowledged Gabe at his table with a raised eyebrow but made no move approach. 

"Yes, sir. We're together. Have been since before Labor Day." Clark said to Gabe after giving his fianc a wink that also produced an amused smile. 

"If I go back with that, nobody's going to believe me. They'll think I've had too much to drink." 

"They could ask me themselves." Clark offered trying to be helpful. Gabe looked at him in horror. 

"That you're dating the boss?" 

"And sleeping with him." Oooh, he was on a roll. It was amazing what a proposal of marriage could do to one's self esteem. 

"Holy mother of God." Gabe took a healthy swig of his drink. The plastic Santa in the middle of the table wobbled when the glass set back down. "This is a good place to work, Clark. No one's going to risk their job by suggesting you're doing the man that signs their paychecks." 

"Good point." Sometimes Clark forgot who Lex was to the rest of the world. "I suppose I could show them?" 

"How?" 

Clark pushed his chair back. "Watch." 

* * *

Lex Luthor, son of Lionel was firmly entrenched in the holiday spirit and loving every minute of it. 

The god awful room with its decorations tacky enough to give Martha Stewart a stroke, the odd butt pinch by a alcohol empowered employee and the second rendition of 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer' by the boys from the midnight shift, did nothing to sour his festive mood. Even bad taste was good tonight. Lex felt made of tinsel and twinkling lights. And all because the best present he could have ever wished for, sat drinking punch on the other side of the cafeteria. 

Merry Christmas to me, Lex thought. Santa brought me a Clark Kent. I must have made the 'nice' list this year for a change. 

"So, where are you spending Christmas, Mr Luthor? Aspen?" Lex looked away from his pride and joy and down into a pair of fluttering eyelashes. He broadened gaze. Actually, six pairs. He was surrounded by the secretarial pool. "Or some other exotic place like Florida, maybe?" 

Florida? Exotic? 

"I'll be right here in Smallville with lovely people like you," Lex paused and searched his impeccable memory. "Norma." 

"Oh, Mr Luthor," she tittered. He was being only half assed charming. Lex saved his best flirting for someone with big puppy dog eyes and the ability to strip him naked in under a nano-second but Norma, along with the other girls, erupted in delighted laughter regardless. With his temporary harem momentarily distracted by his questionable wit, Lex slid his eyes across the room. 

Gabe Sullivan was sitting with Clark. Interesting. Lex wondered when his foreman would decide he'd drunk enough to approach his 'date'. He'd heard the speculative whispers all through dinner. Gabe, as the highest ranking among them had been elected to solve the mystery of Clark's attendance to the all employee function. 

How would his lover answer? Would he deny or confirm their relationship? 

Refusing to rescue him from what was probably an awkward situation, Lex stayed with his girls and watched Clark's reaction to the up coming interrogation closely. Clark caught his scrutiny and....winked? Turning back to his table mate, the saucy young man said something Lex wished he could hear when Gabe Sullivan went white. 

Oh, good farm boy. He'd told the truth. Lex smiled his pride across the floor to him. Clark had ceased being afraid. Poor Gabe however, was another story. 

The older man's agitation grew the more Clark spoke. What exactly was the boy telling him? Lex was imagining all sorts of personal topics ranging from their favorite sexual position to pet names when Clark rose from the table and strode towards him. The girls stopped their chatter. Apparently they'd been watching the exchange as intently as he was. 

Turned out handsomely in a light blue chambray shirt and beige Dockers, his future everything wound a path through suddenly quiet partygoers to Lex's half of the room. By the bar, even the loud and off key midnight boys shut up. Their silence was inconsequential. By the time Clark reached him, only sound Lex could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears. 

Lex nervously licked his lips. "What's up, Clark?" 

Stepping into his air space, the young man smirked and gestured up with a flick of his wide, hazel eyes. Lex followed his gaze to a green ball of leaves dotted with white berries hanging from the ceiling and then, squinted back down. 

"You wouldn't dare," he growled under his breath. 

Immediately after issuing the challenge, Lex's face was caught between two meaty palms, and his head was turned gently to the side. His next breath was sucked in by six foot four of rebellious alien. 

Not chaste by any means, the kiss that landed on his mouth was deep, wet and decadent. Lex's eyelids fell closed as his body drew up to Clark's lips and darting tongue. He was being ravished on tiptoes. 

Boxer's damp with pre-come and chest heaving, Lex was abruptly let go. Strong hands on his biceps kept him from keeling over. 

"Merry Christmas, Lex." A smug looking Clark Kent breathed into his flushed face. 

"Fuck you, farm boy." Lex swore before grabbing Clark's collar, and yanking him forward into another searing kiss. When he felt Clark's erection knock his hip, Lex let go. "Now it's a Merry Christmas," he rubbed his thigh into Clark's expanding groin. "Complete with hard packages to open." 

"Can we go home now, Lex?" Clark asked, his sassy voice reduced to a breathy whisper. "I think we've made our point. Unless of course for our next act you'd like to make love in the middle of the dance floor?" 

Oh, Christ. The party. 

Gathering up what was left of his decorum, Lex sniffed, unfurled his fingers from Clark's shirt front, smoothed it down and while taking a respectable step back, straightened his necktie. It wasn't out of place but it gave him something do while he thought of something to say to his dumbstruck employees. Swinging an upraised fist and yelling 'Party On' wasn't going to cut it. 

"Everyone..." Lex bowed deeply to his audience. "My boyfriend, Clark Kent. Clark...I think you know everyone," he said, using humor as his opening gambit and then, to the sound of nervous laughter, moved out into the middle of the decked out cafeteria. Clark made to follow him but a shake of his head stayed his feet. Shoving his fists in his pockets, Lex began. 

"A few years back I came to this town lost, lonely and without direction. My father, you all know Lionel," A rumble of yeses and a few curses went through the crowd. "Well, good old dad thought small town life would be good for me and I hate to say it. Believe me, I really do but the old boy was right. In Smallville I found a home, learned that 'community' was more than a word and finally when I least expected it, I discovered of all things..." With a throwaway hand from his chest to where Clark stood eyes shining, Lex made a production of his feelings. "..love." 

"And loyalty." Lex cleared his throat. "Let's not forget that. I certainly haven't. You've all been very good to this rookie and you didn't have to be. You've worked hard and through the difficult times, trusted my leadership at the expense of your lives and the lives of your families. You're good people, the right stuff. This party tonight is my small way of showing appreciation for all you've given me. And I promise that I will cherish those gifts forever. You are my home, my family and I thank you for letting me in. But most of all I thank you for Clark. 

I'm not worthy of him. I know that. No devil deserves an angel but as I've told Martha, it's too late. Now that he's mine, I have no intention of giving him back. _Ever_. I was honoured by her blessing and relieved when Jonathon put the shotgun away." 

A lone bark of joviality emanating in the direction of the bar sparked a chorus of laughter. Lex let it run its course before finishing off with a demure 'Merry Christmas' and walking straight into Clark's open arms. 

"I love you, Lex Luthor." Clark kissed his temple. "You're a good man." 

"Give me good enough and I'll be happy." 

"Then this is your lucky day." 

With an arm around his shoulders, Clark walked him out of the cafeteria and took him home. 

In the limo, Lex curled into Clark's lap and then, promptly passed out in nervous exhaustion. Two nail biting confrontations in one day was one over his limit. In the morning Lex would learn that Clark had carried him from the car to bed. 

* * *

"I love it, Clark." Chloe reached across the table and around the creamer to take Clark's hand. "Thank you," she said with a squeeze. 

Clark blushed and untangled his hand. "The palm pilot's from Lex. He said it's to help you fish. Didn't get that part." 

"Well, tell him I do and thank him for me but it's the poem on friendship on the display that I value more. You wrote that, didn't you?" 

"Yeah. Lex says presents that come from the heart and not Fordham's mean more." 

"My, god. He used Fordham's as an example? He really must be going small town." 

"Actually he said Tiffany's." 

"And the universe shifts back into place. So..." Chloe cocked her head in the direction of the Talon's coffee bar where a waifishly built brunette stocked shelves. "What did you get Lana?" 

"A gift certificate from Kent's. I offered to muck out Tyson's stall until I went way to school but she said it wasn't necessary." 

"She refused? Clark, the girl doesn't even like to clean her room. Why would she say no?" 

"She's moving her horse down the road to the Rawlings' farm in the new year. She said it would be better for everyone all round." 

"What is that suppose to mean?" 

"She wouldn't talk about it but considering the timing, I think she's upset about me and Lex being together." 

"Well, come to think of it she was pretty quiet after Dad told us what happened at the party last night. Me, I was bouncing off the walls wishing I could have seen Lex play Romeo but Lana, she just sort sat there playing with her Cheerios. You don't think she's jealous, do you? I mean, after all those years of you chasing her, you end up brushing her off for someone else, and a 'guy' someone else to boot." 

"I haven't got a clue what she's feeling. She won't speak to me." Clark glanced towards the bar. Lana had gone on from straightening the inventory to rearranging the baked goods in the display case. "She won't even look at me." 

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised. You wounded her pride, Clark. Your mooning over her wasn't a secret. It was common knowledge in Smallville and to have that myth so publicly blown apart in one night..." Chloe paused, her eyes filming and gleaming like oil. "Believe me, nobody likes to be thrown over for someone prettier and have the whole world know it." 

"Lex isn't pretty." Clark joked hoping to make her laugh. Somehow he thought he ought to. That he was supposed to. Like Lex in his arms after sex and not the other way around, the fit was easier, made more sense. Lana was the injured party but it was Chloe he wanted to say sorry to. 

"No, he's rakishly handsome in a Machiavellian sort of way but that's not the point and you know it. Quit playing dumb, Clark Kent. In plain terms, you hurt her and she's angry." 

"So, what am I suppose to do about it?" Clark cried in frustration. He hadn't wanted to hurt Lana but hadn't known how not to. How do you tell someone you've moved on and be nice about it? "I won't apologize for falling in love with Lex, Chloe. It's not going to happen. I'm happy with him. I'm _fucking_ delirious. And besides, I'm...gay." Clark replied hesitantly but not without some pride. After months of playing it cool, it was just a little strange to openly proclaim it in public. "If it wasn't Lex, eventually it would have been some other man. Lana and I were never going to happen. How do I say sorry for my sexual orientation?" 

"You don't, not for that but you should have let her know before your debut at the plant Christmas party." Chloe said, telling him what his conscience and good manners already knew. "I'm not saying it would have hurt any less, but you could have been there to help her understand. You blew it, Clark and now you'll have to give her the space to adjust on her own. And she will you know. Just don't flaunt Lex in front of her. Cool the face sucking in crowds for awhile." 

"Not a problem." Clark smiled. "Except for the rare exception, Lex isn't big on PDA's unless they come with email and spell check," he laughed softly, sending Chloe's palm pilot spinning on the table with a flick of his finger. 

"Too bad. I could use some fresh material for my fantasies." Chloe's eyes twinkled dangerously. "I'm starting to forget how loud Lex screamed while you were on your knees in loft. Is he always that vocal or only when you blow him?" 

"Blow...oh, geez." Clark moaned and then, glared at Chloe. "You do know how much that grosses me out, don't you? My sex life is not fuel for your fantasies, Chloe Sullivan." 

"Right, right, of course." She nodded somberly. "It's personal." 

"Damn straight." 

"None of my business." 

"None at all." 

"I shouldn't pry." 

"No." 

"Uh-huh. So who tops? You or Lex?" 

"Lex, but I've been thinking..." Clark stopped and stared at her smiling face, an inch away from using his heat vision. "Dammit, Chloe!" 

Unafraid and unawares, she finally laughed for him. 

It was good. 

* * *

"Another one?" 

"Sorry, sir. Shall I leave downstairs on your desk?" 

"No." Lex gestured with his fingers. "Give it here." 

Waiting until Enrique left his bedroom, Lex swept aside the Christmas cards he'd been reading, scattering them to the floor and dropped the manila envelope on the coverlet. 

"Christ, Dad," Lex cursed, giving the mess beside the bed a glance. "You're one hell of a fucking mood killer." 

Taking a rare moment to himself, Lex had been sitting crossing legged on his bed and going over the unexpected dearth of well wishes he'd received from his employees that day. Like the blasted envelope that was obviously from Lionel, they'd had been hand delivered, some with the Smallville equivalent of an affectionate shot in the arm--baked goods. 

The plant was closed and would not reopen until the first Wednesday in January. 

The holiday break was a LexCorp first. It had nothing, well next to nothing, to do with the fact they were operating in the black and could afford it. His most recent sap attack was largely due to the other recipient of the cards, the taller, good looking one with hair. He looked again to his latest message, lying unopened on his bed. 

Feeling suddenly alone, Lex's hand went automatically to the phone on the night side table. Just before hitting the autodial to the Kent farm, he stopped, put the receiver back down in its cradle and laughed. 

"Nice try, Lionel. But this year, Christmas is mine." 

Lex refused to let his father upset him. Whatever pictorial warning the envelope held, Lex would approach it with diffidence, break it down to manageable factors and handle it. He'd been doing much same all day, this piece of crap would be no different than the rest. 

The first problem to be dealt with had come when Clark had zipped back within moments of leaving his bed for the farm this morning. During the night someone had spray painted derogatory epitaphs on the red washed walls of the Kent barn. 

Using the same security company that kept the castle safe from unwanted visitors, Lex had requested motion lights and alarms installed around the perimeter of the farm. Being the day before Christmas he'd been quoted a price twice the normal, but it was of no concern. The anger and fear twisting his guts had loosened his pocketbook and muddled his money sense. He had ended paying once more on top of that to ensure the job was done right. 

Jonathon hadn't liked turning his home into a fortress but had acquiesced when Lex had the service extended to the cover the crank calls that had been plaguing them. The phone that was installed had a range that could change the orbital trajectory of satellites if need be. Along with a tracking system, call blocking was the least of its capabilities. The Kents would not be bothered again. 

The next issue came to Lex independently while watching the workman install equipment around the greenhouse. 

The farm was more than a home to the Kents, it was a business. And with Jonathon's pride in mind, Lex had slipped home with the excuse of work to spend the remainder of his day on the phone in his bedroom. Using the yellow pages as his guide, every restaurant he'd ever patronized in Metropolis now knew the benefits of organic produce. If small town prejudice prevailed, the Kents would not suffer for lack for orders. They would be financially independent until the day they retired. 

Feeling that his precious corner of the world was sufficiently safe from evil for the moment, Lex had taken a break to munch on the pound cake his personal assistant at the plant had dropped off and to open the many coloured envelopes that Enrique had been delivering to the end of his bed during his save the Kents campaign. There was just one more. 

"Okay, old man. What have you got for me this time?" 

With the same small black comb he'd used to open his Christmas cards--it was Clark's, his raven haired lover kept it in the bathroom--Lex slit the end of the manila envelope and let the picture slide out on to the coverlet. It was a yet another kiss. 

"Fuck!" 

In colour this time, not black and white the candid was of Clark holding him and kissing his temple while a circle of people gazed on. The quality sucked. It must have been taken by an amateur with a disposable camera but the location was clear enough to be defined. 

The plant cafeteria, Lex's home turf. 

During the Christmas party, one of his own fucking employee's had captured the shot. The betrayal rankled and rubbed. 

Lionel had infiltrated his camp. 

Howling in fury, Lex rose up on his knees and whipped the manila envelope across the room. A flicker of yellow caught his eye and he dived for it, bouncing on the bed and snagging it with his fingertips. 

A yellow post it note. 

It read, in his father's unmistakable scrawl, _Phase Two?_. Lex didn't have to run downstairs to the monitor in his library to know the first one he'd neglected to read probably said _Phase One?_. 

Wiping the tacky midge of paper from his fingers on the grainy picture with the disgust it deserved, Lex rose from the bed to pace and think. The sparse messages changed his take on his father's motivations. 

Phases, phases, phases? 

The photographs still had to be a warning but of what kind? Where the first had been predicable in spite of its tameness, the second picture was a surprise despite its nature. Lex had expected the next communication from Lionel to be a verbal or at the least, a written reprimand, a clear and concise message to stick his dick back in his pants and stop messing around. 

No phone call. No letter. A photograph. What was he up to? 

Phases were what? Stages? Steps? 

Okay, Lionel was watching yes, and from more than one vantage point but beyond than that, he was paying attention, seeing Lex's encounters with Clark as a steps in a plan of action. Observing the process and waiting for its completion. 

Think wicked. Think clever. Think perverse. 

Lex halted abruptly in his tracks. "You can't want me to win him?" 

The same prickly feeling, reminiscent of that fateful but wondrous day Martha Kent had come to him and asked him if he could feel something _more_ for her son buzzed up Lex's spine. His mouth went dry. 

This was dangerous territory. 

Something was seriously wrong and Lex couldn't wait for the next picture to find out what it was. Going on the offense was the only option. He had too much to lose to sit back and let his father play Double Jeopardy with his life and adopted family. 

"This is my show, Lionel," he snarled. 

He was *Alex * and he was the one who got to ask the one thousand dollar questions from now on. And they were going weren't going be a two word phrase that fit on an one by one and half inch post it note. His back molars grinding against his uppers, Lex straightened in his shirt and pulled at his belt. 

It was time to go into the lion's den and declaw the son-of-a-bitch. 

* * *

"Tonight? You're leaving for Metropolis tonight? Geez, Lex. It's Christmas Eve!" 

"No, sunshine, I'm taking the Humvee into the city first thing tomorrow morning." 

"Then you can stay the night. I have something special planned. A sort of present." 

"Does it involve sleep?" 

"Ah...no." 

"Then it will have to keep until tomorrow." 

"But we're opening your presents tonight." 

"I know but I have to be fresh to face Lionel in the morning. You saw the picture and the notes. I can't let this thing go on." 

"I'm being a baby, I know, Lex but..." 

"It's our first Christmas Eve together as a couple." 

"As an _engaged_ couple. Unless you intend on stringing me on for years, we're not going to get another one." 

"Not to preempt my gift to you but you're right, this is it. I'm sorry, Clark." 

"Me too. Kiss me before we go back in?" 

"Anything my heart of hearts. Your happiness is my benchmark for greatness." 

"Just the kiss, Lex." 

"Just the kiss." 

* * *

"Go into the kitchen and send your father in." Lex said, fighting back tears. 

"You're kidding, right?" Clark said and then, licked him in one long swipe from jaw to temple. _Licked_. Oh, Christ. This kiss was wet and messy and new and _hot_. Lex went hard immediately. "Now, Lex? When all I want to do is fuck you and make you mine?" 

"Fuck me?" Lex croaked, only remembering his own name because Clark had just said it. 

The big ball of squirming teenager sitting astride his hips who now wore Lillian's transmogrified engagement ring on his left hand and knew the date of his impending wedding, ducked his chin to his chest and stilled. 

"Is that what you want?" Lex muzzled his lover's baby soft hair with his lips as he spoke. "Jesus, Clark. After all this time? You want to fuck me?" He asked again as a thrill he didn't expect went through his body. "Say it again. Tell me you want me. Oh, Christ, Clark. Tell me....please." 

Without looking up, Clark jumped off his lap like it was on fire. "I'll get Dad." 

"No, wait." Lex said, his hands reaching out for flannel but ending up with fistfuls of nothing. 

Lex was about heave his ass up off the living room couch and follow Clark into the kitchen when Jonathon took his air space and entered the room. Thinking about cold rain and engine troubles, Lex settled back down. As the older man took a seat on the matching easy chair, Lex grabbed the afghan from the back of the couch to wrap around his shoulders and conceal the confused erection in his pants. 

"Cold?" Jonathon asked. "Do you want me to throw another log on the fire, Lex?" 

"No, sir. It's fine. I'm fine." 

Bobbing his blond head and pursing his lips, Jonathon stared towards the grate. The dancing flames were hypnotic. Besides the Christmas tree, which sat a safe distance to the right, they were the only light in the room. In silence, Lex and his lover's father sat awhile just watching. 

"I proposed." Lex said finally, keeping his eyes locked on the fire. 

Jonathon answered evenly, his tone as dead as the field stones lining the hearth, "I gathered." 

Lex flinched and looked at the older man. He hadn't moved to the sound of his voice. He was still watching the fire. "You did?" 

The corner of his mouth twitched. "His feet weren't touching kitchen tiles a moment ago." 

"So, you know he said yes." 

"Uh-huh." 

"Is that...acceptable?" 

In painfully slow increments, or so it seemed to Lex, Jonathon's head turned towards him. His breathing went up a notch. When the older man smiled, Lex almost stroked out. There was too much blood pulsing in his temples 

"More than, son." Jonathon's low, comforting voice rumbled. 

"Oh, Christ." Lex pulled his legs up and hugged his shins. He hadn't since he was nine and never, ever with company, but he was about to cry into his kneecaps. 

"Lex?" 

"I'm sorry, Mr Kent," Lex sniffed and in one long stroke, wiped his runny nose dry with his sleeve. The silk Mikado shirt was ruined but not a write off. It would probably find a friend in the back of his closet with a pair of semen stained Helmut Lang pants he'd been hiding from his staff. "But you can't imagine what I would have done if you didn't agree to me marrying Clark." 

Clark's father looked at him like he had two heads. "But I did that months ago. Didn't Martha tell you?" 

"Yes, sir, she did but you're you and I'm me. It's still a little hard to for me to comprehend." 

"You're not your name son. You're a good boy...a good man. Didn't know that before, but I do now." 

Lex laughed. "Maybe I should send you to see my father tomorrow. You'd probably scare the piss out of him." 

The older man straightened his shoulders and leaned forward. "If you want." 

"Oh, fuck, no." Lex protested, genuinely touched by the offer. It was heartfelt and he knew it. "I called you in here to give you a gift, not to offer you up to the wolves." 

"It had better not be a tractor." Jonathon squinted at him. "Don't think I didn't see you talking to that John Deere salesman last fall." 

"Unless it fits in this," Lex handed him a thin, square cardboard box covered with more tape than purple foil. He had given Enrique the night off and had wrapped it himself. "I'd say no. Although all bets are off come your anniversary to that wonderful wife of yours. She's worth a fleet of farm equipment." 

"Low blow," Jonathon grumbled and then opened his present. "What's this," he asked holding up a thin metal disc the size of his palm. The underside flashed iridescent in the fire light. 

"My ruin conveniently burned on a CD." 

"Excuse me?" 

"You hold in your hand the means to put me in prison for a very long time, Mr Kent. It's a video confession, a computerize media file of what I've done to your son. I don't expect you to watch it and recommend that you don't--it's quite graphic--but if you ever feel the need, if I hurt your son, you have my permission to show it to the authorities." 

"In lieu of ass hairs?" 

"It's admissible in court. Even if I wanted to, I can't protest it. My lawyer has made sure of it." 

Jonathon stood up, gathering the cardboard and the foil along with the disc into his big meaty hands. "Thanks?" 

"You're welcome, sir and Merry Christmas. Now if you could please ask Mrs Kent to come in." 

"Sure. I can't wait to hear what you got her." 

Passing by the fireplace, the older man tossed the rubbish he'd been holding into the hearth. It made quite a flare and smelled horribly. 

When he left the room completely, Lex noticed the big man was empty handed. 

* * *

"So, April 5th." 

"He showed you the ring." Lex said to Martha who was snuggled up beside him on the couch sharing the afghan. The handmade cover's initial purpose had been mute since Jonathon had volunteered to take on his father. "Did you like it?" he asked timidly. 

"Two emeralds and a diamond the size of the nail on my pinky sunk into a platinum band? It's beautiful, Lex" 

"The emeralds remind me of his eyes." 

"And the diamond?" 

"That's all her." 

"Your mother. You're sharing her with Clark." 

"Quid pro quo." 

"Stop it, Lex. You'll make me cry." 

"It gets worse." 

"Worse? My present?" 

"Actually, when I think about it, I'm not sure if it's only yours but you were the first person I wanted to tell after I did the math." 

"You're going to tell me a secret. I didn't think us Kents had any of those left." 

"There's one." Lex hugged her for including him the clan. "Clark knows and maybe he should be here too but I asked him for permission to tell you alone. For a lot of reasons, I wanted it to be me to give you this gift, this hope. Call it payback." 

"Stop the dramatics, and tell me, Lex." 

"He can have children, Martha. My children. One of these days I just might make you a grandmother." 

"No." 

"Yes." 

"But how can you know? Did the ship tell you?" 

"I haven't seen the ship, Martha. Never had the need funny enough but now that I know it talks..." 

"It doesn't really but it does react to Clark on occasion. I think somehow it protects him." 

"Now there's a conversation I'll have to bring up with my husband to be." 

"Back to babies, Lex. How do you know you can get Clark pregnant?" 

"Ever watch any Star Trek, Martha? Especially the episodes concerning Pon Farr?" 

"Clark reacts to your love making instinctually? Is that it?" 

"There's a purpose to it beyond enjoyment. There has to be, it's so intense. I'm convinced when the timing's right or when he's mature enough, we'll conceive. That frightens Clark but it excites me. I want to father his children. It doesn't matter when." 

"I hate to ask this but you don't take him against his will, do you? You did say he was frightened." 

"What? No, of course not. I'm helpless in his arms. A willing victim. Sex doesn't happen unless he wants it and he wants it...often." 

"What about birth control to relieve his worries. Ever hear of condoms, Lex?" 

"He won't let me wear one. I've tried or at least meant to in the beginning. Unless he switches, sooner or later I'm convinced it's going to happen, Martha." 

"Switches?" 

"Fucks me. I've offered, hinted but he's never responded before tonight. I think he wants me, Martha. Can you believe it? Oh, Christ. Clark Kent really wants me. You can't know what that does to me. To be claimed by him...taken. He's so goddamn beautiful, so goddamn fucking perfect. I didn't think it mattered until he brought it up but thinking about it...to be accepted and feel his love inside me...oh, geez. It's driving me nuts. I need him so much it hurts." 

"Oh." 

Oh? Why, oh? Oh, fuck. Of course. 

"Too much information?" Damn, he was a blithering idiot. Lex wiped his foolish mouth with his hand, did a full face wince and then, looked one eyed at her. "Sorry, but with you, I tend to forget I'm talking to my lover's mother. You've been so good to me." 

"No, no, it's okay. I think." Her pretty little mouth pursed as her auburn lashes fluttered. "You love Clark, want him. That comes across. It's important to you. And it's important to me. It's why I came to you. I knew it would come to this. Counted on it...hoped...prayed." 

"But a little hard to take when it's thrown in your face? 

"A bit. Clark's still my little boy, Lex and over six thousand cups of coffee, you've become my friend and peer. It's hard to equate the two of you. My son's your lover. And you're my friend. Can I still be a little funny with that?" 

"As long as I am." 

"Are you?" 

"Yes, ma'am. When I find the time to pull my head out of my ass and think about someone other than him. A waste of time really. There is no one else. I've known prettier but not better. He's the only one I think about and it isn't easy. Clark confuses me like no one ever. He makes me say and do the sappiest of things, stupid stuff, romantic even." 

"Behavior unbefitting a Luthor." 

"Yeah. You can't imagine and what little pride I have left prevents me from telling you. But I can say he spins my brain and messes with my identity. Makes me know right from wrong, left from right and back again. He doesn't give me morals but makes me sees the ones I already have. Funny but when Clark smiles, I forget I am a Luthor." 

"You know, I like that you love him so much you forget yourself." 

"I do it a lot. All the time. It's scary." 

"I'll bet." 

"Anyway, Martha, about the baby thing, that was my present. Merry Christmas?" 

"Yes, I believe it is. Thank you for telling me, Lex. The reality of it hasn't hit me yet but I do appreciate the information." 

"Enough to tell Jonathon for me?" 

"Oooh, now. Let's not jump the _shotgun_ , if you get my meaning. Perhaps we should let Clark do that if and when the time comes. Agreed?" 

"Agreed." 

"Good, now let's have some cocoa before Enrique comes to fetch you." 

"Cocoa sounds great." 

God, he loved this woman, pragmatism, heated chocolate beverages and all. 

Jonathon Kent was as lucky as he was. 

* * *

"Are you sure he's old enough to be married?" 

"Clark's a sensible boy, Jonathon. Mature beyond his years." 

"No, Martha. I'm talking about Lex. He seemed so young tonight. I mean, this morning he was strutting around giving orders in that cool voice of his, putting the fear of god in men twice his age and then, tonight...hell, Martha. I think I made him cry." 

"It's a compliment, dear. Lex acts himself around you. He respects you, likes you even. Don't be surprised if he asks you to be his best man." 

"You sure? I thought he'd ask you to stand up for him." 

"He can't. I'm the mother of the bride." 

"Martha, that's not funny." 

"It is, a little. Admit it." 

"No. My son may prefer men but he is not a woman." 

"Clark laughed when I said it to him." 

"Clark laughs at everything lately. Even that damn picture Lex brought over." 

"I know. It's nice, isn't?" 

"Yeah...but the bride thing, still not funny, Martha." 

"Good night, Jonathon." 

* * *

Lex had come last night with his fingers up his ass. 

Not the most appropriate thought Lex mused as he walked into his father's office but it did give him a reason to keep the meeting brief. There were questions that needed answering in Smallville. 

Unusually evasive, Clark had refused to walk him to his car the previous evening, kissing him good bye at the kitchen door in clear view of his parents. The room was small. Sound traveled. It was bad enough he was covertly rubbing the erection under his coat into their son's thigh while they sat three feet away drinking cocoa. Lex couldn't ask about his lover's desires within their earshot. Martha had heard enough of his sex life, and Jonathon, well...Lex was horny not stupid. Not all of his brains were below his waist. He had kissed Clark hard, gave him a look that said he knew what the boy was doing and left, limping. 

Once home, Lex had flown up the stairs to his bedroom, stripped off his clothes with less care than he normally took and fallen back on the bed, his dick in hand before he hit the mattress. Jerking his cock, he'd rammed two dry fingers into his hole and had screamed for Clark to fuck him. He had exploded into orgasm at the first touch to his long forgotten prostate. 

"Merry Christmas, son." 

"Dad." Lex said dryly, not returning the greeting. Laconic was his word for the day. He would not raise his voice or display emotion. He would give nothing away. 

Watching his father track his progress with a tilt to his head, Lex wandered over to perch his ass on the corner of Lionel desk. He left his coat on. He wouldn't be staying long enough to become too warm. "Phase one - the city. Phase two - the town," he dropped, waiting for the old man's reaction. 

Behind his dark glasses, Lionel's dead eyes sparkled. "And phase three, the final step - me." 

"You? Why would I bother trying to convince you of my love for Clark?" 

"Oh, come now, Lex. Love? We both know there's no profit in it. Besides the obvious, I've heard the lad is quite fetching, you're after something else. I want to know what it is." 

"Did you love Lillian, Lionel?" 

"You'd compare your mother with that farmer?" 

"Love is love, Dad. Perhaps your blackened heart can't understand this but it's reward unto itself." 

"Sentimental crap and you know it. You can't fool me, Lex. I know I've raised you better than that. You've discovered something special about Clark. You fucked him for it." 

"I'm leaving now, Dad." Lex slid off the desk and headed towards the door. He was sick of hearing his lover's precious name on his father's lips. He was nearly there when Lionel yelled at his back. 

"He's not human!" 

Lex froze, fear filling his veins in an instant. He recovered quickly. Had to. 

"I've seen, touched and tasted every inch of his body." Lex called over his shoulder. An army of ants marched up his spine. He pressed his nails into his palms and ignored them. "He's human enough." 

Hoping that was the end of it, Lex stretched his fingers and resumed his course out the door. 

"Explain his strength then." Lionel said quietly and Lex stopped. There was no need to yell this time. The older man knew he still had his son's attention. 

Carefully monitoring his breathing--blind men had big ears--Lex turned and said with all the exasperation he could muster, "Dad, he's from Smallville. So yes, sometimes when Clark's frighten or angry the mutant in him makes him a little stronger than ordinary. Big deal." Lex tossed off. "It's nothing compared to what others in that town can do. Clark can't morph or bend others to his will with his breath. His aberration is boring and because it's sporadic, useless. I've checked it out, believe me." 

"It's not his only _aberration_ , Lex." 

"It's the only one worth noting." 

"Lying to the handicap is below you, son." A sharp snort. "Of course, so is fucking a freak. You could have anybody and yet, you chose him. You even went so far as to woo him. And don't tell me you were motivated by love. We're both too old for fairy tales. Clark Kent possesses some hidden value and you want it. I want it." 

Lex laughed bitterly. "I doubt it since the only thing of _value_ Clark possesses is my happiness. Meaningless to you granted, but surprise, surprise, important to me. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a turkey dinner to attend," Lex said while walking, his purpose firm but his gait unsteady. 

"Yes, well...say hello to wonder boy for me, will you?" Lionel rang out joyfully as Lex finally crossed the threshold. 

He ran all the way to his car. 

* * *

Seeing the number on the display, Clark caught the call on the first ring. 

"Lex?" 

"Hi, sunshine." 

"Where are you?" 

"In the Humvee. Parked." 

"Okay...parked where?" 

"Outside my father's office building. It's snowing." 

"Are you all right?" 

"I am now." 

"Come home, Lex." 

"Yeah...and Clark," 

"What?" 

"I love you." 

The line went dead. 

* * *

"He thought it easier to believe there were aliens among us than the possibility of his own son falling in love. What does that say about him? God, Clark," Lex moaned and bashed his head back on the cushions of the couch. "What does that say about me?" 

"Nothing, nothing at all." Clark said, hating Lionel. He pulled the brooding man beside him on the couch closer and cradled him to his chest to silence any further questions. He wished his mother had not gone bed. It seemed she always knew what to say to Lex when he waxed philosophical Luthor style. 

When Lex went over his meeting with Lionel at dinner, she'd been logical and brisk, asking smart questions and debunking fears. His mother was a lot like Lex when he thought about it. 

Lionel may have suspicions about Clark's heritage and that was worrisome but according to his mother, nothing new. Months ago she seen his 'Kent' files and had burnt them at the first opportunity. Lionel had never mentioned the loss and at that point, she'd been certain his obsession had run its course. Lex's interest in him had revived it but she assured, only temporarily. Eventually Lionel would find other nit to pick. She knew the man. He'd lose interest and move on. 

It had been a rational argument that even Lex seemed to accept although throughout the meal he had been skeptical. He didn't trust his father to let him be happy and was still bothered by the traitor working for him at the plant, berating himself for not asking Lionel who it was when he had the chance. It was only when Clark's mother squeezed his hand over the table and told Lex everything would be okay had his lover finally relaxed. Lex had smiled gratefully at her then and had looked so beautiful in his trust that it had quite taken Clark's breath away. 

As a family they had cleared the table and washed dishes before adjourning to the living room to finish the ritual of opening presents. Clark pressed lips gently to the side of Lex's face and then looked down at him. 

Staring quietly into the fire, the older man wore of sweater of steel gray blue, the same colour as his troubled eyes. Besides the numerous dropped stitches, it was an imperfect fit, sleeves too long and in need of rolling up. Cooking was definitely his mother's forte but none less Clark thought Lex looked handsome in the well meant gift. 

"You're the sexiest man I know," Clark said speaking his thoughts. At the sound of his voice, the older man turned to him, the pain and self doubt in his eyes replaced with wry amusement. Maybe Clark didn't need his mother. 

"You think so, farm boy?" Lex drawled, his mouth twisting laconically in the way Clark loved. 

"Yeah, and you know what else?" Using his alien strength, Clark hauled his amused lover to sit astride his hips, careful to line the crotch seams of their pants up just so. "I'm glad you're mine," he growled while curling his tailbone up. Lex emitted something between a gasp and a laugh. It was such a sweet, perfect sound that Clark became instantly hard in worship. 

Lex wound his arms around Clark's neck, leaned forward and whispered, "Not completely yours but you did mention something last night that could remedy that." 

"Making love to you?" Clark said into Lex's cheek eliciting a shiver from the older man that vibrated deliciously through the denim of his jeans and straight into his swelling cock. Inspired, he palmed Lex's butt cheeks in preparation and murmured, "Fucking you?" Clark was very glad his mother wasn't here when he was rewarded with another full body shudder. 

Very slowly, Lex pulled his head around until Clark could see his face. His eyes were half hidden by dun coloured lashes. "Would you like to?" The question was asked softly as if the older man was bracing himself for refusal. It heartbreaking and wondrous to see the omnipotent Lex Luthor look so young and unsure. Moved that this shy beauty was all for him, Clark nearly answered before remembering. 

"Come, on." Clark rose from the couch and set Lex down on his feet. The older man hung on to his biceps and blinked furiously trying to get his bearings. "It's time for my present." 

"Another one?" Lex said and then, flushed. 

"Lex, I haven't given you anything yet." 

"Oh, Christ, Clark." Lex scowled when Clark tilted his head in confusion. The old Lex was back but that was okay. He loved the snarky one too. With thinly veiled desperation, Lex wrapped his long elegant fingers around Clark's left wrist and lifted his hand to his face. "Don't make me say it." 

Clark stared a moment at the ring. The gems sparkled brilliantly in the firelight causing a chain reaction in his brain. Oh. Now, he got it. Mush time. No wonder the man was making such a fuss. "Oh geez, Lex, that's really sweet." Clark hugged him close and planted a wet one on the purple vein pulsing beside his right eye. "I'm your present." 

Clark didn't understand Lex's aversion to romance and probably never would. Not that it mattered. It was just one of the older man's quirks like his relentless pride, taste for the dramatic and obsession for neatness. It was trite and Clark knew it, but it was made Lex, Lex and worst still, Clark wouldn't have it any other way. He loved the megalomanic son of bitch, eccentricities and all. 

Clark's chest hitched when heard Lex's low and throaty voice rumble, "A gift unto itself." and thought, was that romantic? A nip to his ear and a murmur of something about love. Clark's cock spurted a little in his pants. Oh yeah, romantic and _hot_. Despite his acceptance of his lover's quirky personality, it gave Clark a certain thrill when occasionally Lex threw his dignity to the side and willingly slipped. 

"Come out to the barn with me, Lex." It was time to go and it was time to go _now_. 

Lex levered off his chest and squinted up at him like a petulant five year old. "It's cold out. Your folks have gone to bed, can't we make out like couple of hormonal teenagers by the fire?" Lex tried to push him back on to the couch--god, how this man loved his creature comforts, he white knuckled them to keep them close but Clark remained firm. "I thought you liked 'necking', sunshine." Lex purred. The sulking child was gone and replaced by something feral and Clark _did_ waver just a bit. 

"It's fine in the loft. I've fixed it up with the spot heaters we use for winter calvings before you got home. They're infra-red lights that warm the air. It should be toasty up there by now. And besides, Luthors don't 'neck', remember?" 

"Luthors don't but _Lex_ does." With his fingertips, the older man found his erection and smirked in surprise like he hadn't known it had been there for the last five minutes. "I might even let you get to second base. Third, if you're lucky." 

Okay now the man was being ridiculous. Morose, Clark could handle, snippy too but silly? Not when he had a cock he could plow fields with. He wasn't in the mood for teasing and he was trying to make a freakin gesture here. He had a present he'd thought quite a lot about to give. 

"On the couch? Oh, yeah, right. What if Mom or Dad came down for a glass of milk or something?" 

"That could be a problem." Lex chided as he rubbed his groin against Clark's. It was hot and hard and Clark's got wetter. "They might demand I marry you to preserve your honour." 

"This is stupid." Clark muttered and then gave up talking. Bending over, Clark seized Lex by the back of his thighs and stood, throwing the now sputtering man over his shoulder. 

He had enough with trying to give. 

It was time to take. 

* * *

"You did this for me?" Lex asked, gazing about the loft in sort of a detached wonder. It was brightly decorated with small twinkling lights twisted into branches of evergreen. The room had sweet tangy smell and was warm like Clark promised but Lex shivered anyway. 

"Yeah, call it atmosphere. Now shut up and strip before I do it for you." 

His hands burrowed in the hem of his Christmas sweater, Lex looked sharply up from the couch where Clark had plopped him. Not surprised, the younger man was already blissfully, beautifully naked. Lex felt no guilt for not paying attention. Around Clark, if you blinked twice, odds were you'd miss something but he did have some regret. Lex had a feeling tonight was important. He didn't want to miss a thing. "You're going to fuck me, aren't you. That's my present." 

Confirming his suspicion and granting his wish, Clark nodded, his eyes a deeper shade of green than Lex had ever seen. Ironically, they were flecked and glowed almost like the meteorite that was Clark's bane. "Hard, Lex. I'm going to fuck you, very, very hard." 

Lex felt like weeping. 

"I love you," he said as he stood, removed Martha's present and laid it over the arm of the couch, folding with small careful movements. He was biding his time. Lex was twenty three and not a virgin in any remote sense of the word but was startled to find he was nervous. 

Inside, in the house, Lex had known that this was what Clark was offering. He wasn't that obtuse. The small snatch of conversation the night previous and Clark's aversion to extrapolate had fed the knowing and the part of him that wanted this so badly. He was scared and honoured. Touched and so deathly afraid that Clark would somehow be disappointed. His lover had given his virginity, his most precious self. What did Lex have to tender in return? He had not been well used, Lex had topped more often than he bottomed but he was still yet, used. It would not be a fair trade. He was unbuttoning his shirt by remote when Clark caught him up in his arms, pinning his hands to his neck. 

"I love you too," the boy whispered. "You're my everything, Lex. My absolute everything." 

Jesus fucking Christ, he didn't deserve this. 

Making a decision, Lex tulipped his arms upward, arched his neck and let his backbone go lax against Clark's wide palms. "Take me," he said, giving the one thing he did have left...his subservience, his will, his pride. "Strip me, own me, Clark. Shove your cock up my ass and make me beg to come." 

"Luthors don't beg. I don't want you to beg." Clark protested, his voice thin, breaking _and_ lying. He was already slowly tearing Lex's clothes from his body, ripping seams and bruising the skin where the fabric pulled when they both knew he could have Lex naked in a quick silvered instant. Sharp teeth bit, not nibble his neck, sweeping thumbs rubbed his nipples raw and a demanding cock slid between his legs and jerked up under his balls. 

Seventeen, alien and a power house of untapped lust. 

This boy may not yet know it but he craved what Lex offered. Each movement screamed ownership and demanded surrender. Clark needed to fuck him and Lex, turned on by his lover's savage hunger, needed to be fucked. 

"Mine...mated...mine..." Clark growled, the slick head of his penis breaching Lex's unprepared hole with every upward thrust, wetting the rim and making it quiver. 

"Fuck me...oh Jesus, Clark...please." Lex howled, no longer offering but pleading. The almost penetration was killing him. He needed more. 

With a grunt, Clark pushed him back down on the couch and fell between his knees on the planked floor of the loft. While his young lover snagged the lube tucked conveniently between the cushions, Lex curled his hips forward and spread his legs wide in open invitation. Lex's cock, hard and leaking arched over his navel, poked under his ribs and dribbled down his belly. 

Kissing him for the first time since they'd entered the loft, Clark sucked at his lips, and traced his teeth with his tongue. Startled by the intimacy, Lex was ridiculously unprepared when two fingers, cool and slick, scissored into his ass. He yelped and grabbed the base of his prick to head off the fluid warmth traveling down his spine and into his balls. 

"Coming..." he croaked into Clark's mouth. 

"Oh god, Lex. Not yet." Clark cried, quickly removing his fingers. 

Expecting Clark to slam home between his legs, Lex's orgasm was momentarily thwarted when he went airborne and was pulled forward off the couch. Another yelp escaped his lips when he landed squarely on the tip of Clark's over large prick and was in one smooth thrust, impaled. 

"Holy fuck, Lex!" With his waist in the vise grip Clark called hands, the younger man began bucking up, pulsing into his hole, seeking a rhythm and then, playing the hell out of it at a frantic pace when he found it. "Oh...Lex...oh, fuck...oh, fuck...fuck!" Clark swore like Lex had never heard before. 

Clark wasn't trying, he didn't have the experience or the presence of mind, but without fail, each bold stroke up hit Lex's long neglected prostate. It hurt a little, Clark was a large man to accommodate and Lex was long out of practice, but each thrust to the little nub sent electric jolts of pleasure through his body. The orgasm that he'd tried to stave off earlier followed the sexually charged lines and surged back with a bang. Lex literally saw stars, bursting explosions and fireworks behind his eyelids. Despite the pain of being so roughly taken, his inner thighs convulsed and with a howl, he laced Clark's rippling belly with ropey strings of come. 

"Leeex!" His suddenly vocal lover screamed as he slammed Lex down on his lap, nearly dislocating his hips. Lex could almost feel his pelvis stretching as Clark's hands fumbled and scratched across his skin to seat him deeper. The tension increased when his Clark's generous cock swelled, creating an opposing force and flooded his insides with thick, alien ejaculate. Lex was pulled tight beyond pain into pleasure both inside and out. 

In the last moments, Lex went limp like a rag doll and let Clark ream out his orgasm in complete and total control. His submission garnered him the sweet music of a few deep throated grunts of what sounded like his name and then an exhausted, long drawn out sigh. If he could find someone to score it, the noises Clark made while he fucked him would be a beautiful symphony, a Metropolis Concert Hall sell out. Lex smiled and tried to hum the proposed tune as black dots danced before his eyes and the white in his peripheral winked out. 

The curtain went down. 

When he came to he was no longer astride Clark's lap but on the couch, laying face down across a thickly muscled torso and secured in place by big farmer's hands on his ass. An old but soft blanket covered his other side. There was no stickiness. Clark must have cleaned him before laying him out. 

Yawning and stretching his legs, Lex molded himself into a more comfortable position, sliding himself until he was wedged into the tight cocoon between the back of the sofa and Clark's side. Feeling warm and safe under the curve of his lover's shoulder, Lex closed his eyes intending to go back to sleep. 

"Hey, sexy." 

"You're awake. Dammit, Clark. You're not supposed to be awake." 

"Why not?" 

"Because I don't want to be." 

"Oh." 

Silence. 

"Why didn't you tell me, Lex?" 

"Tell you what?" 

"How good it was from this side." 

"Don't know. I suppose it's one of those things you have to learn about from doing." 

"Oh." 

More silence but not enough. 

"Did you like it, Lex?" 

"Oh Christ, Clark. Like what exactly?" 

"Having me inside you." 

"Yes." 

"Really?" 

"Clark, I passed out when I came. I've never done that before." 

"Cool." 

Silence again but this time it was too loud. 

"Clark?" 

"Yeah, Lex." 

"You did say _you_ liked it, right?" 

"Uh-huh but I didn't pass out. I don't think I can." 

"But if you could?" 

"Boom, out goes the lights." 

"Is it better?" 

"I don't know, Lex. Different, maybe." 

"So, no preferences?" 

"I'm not sure. It was more intense at the time but it does lack something after." 

"Why's that?" 

"Because now I can't feel you melting inside me and I've got to tell you, that feels pretty damn good. I miss it, Lex, big time." 

"I miss the possibilities." 

"I can't knock you up." 

"It's not likely. I'm not rigged the same way you are, Clark." 

"So, which do you like better?" 

"Tough question." 

"Yeah." 

"Sleep, now?" 

"Sleep sounds good. Love you." 

"Mmmm." 

* * *

Lana hadn't come. 

Clark stuffed his hands in the pockets of the jacket he didn't need against the cold and walked along the side of the barn until he hit a stack of bags filled with frozen fertilizer. He sat down and watched the back of Sam Rawlings' horse trailer as it made a right in the laneway. It was winter so the top doors were shut. With normal vision, he couldn't see equine cargo it contained. 

"She's probably waiting to stable him once he gets there." Clark said to the retreating vehicle, slumping his back and turning his gaze towards the hills in the direction of the castle. He didn't want to watch it leave all together. He didn't need that memory. It was too final. 

Lana wasn't ever going come again. 

She hadn't waited until the new year. It was only three days past Christmas. The early retrieval of Tyson, Whitney's old horse from the Kent farm, was not a good sign. Lana must have been anxious to cut all that tied her to Clark. She was not going to forgive him for Lex. Without further discussion she had ended their friendship. 

Clark had hoped to speak to her when she came to pick up the horse, to explain if not apologize. He'd even gone so far as to risk a fight with Lex and had asked him to go home for the first time since Christmas so he and Lana talk alone. As predicted, the banishment to castle had not set well with his lover. 

Before he reluctantly left, Lex had grumbled through the Humvee's driver side window that he was wasting his time, saying deposed despots did not forgive the serfs that toppled them. Clark had protested both the unnecessarily cruel title and the negative opinion but Lana's failure to show told him without a doubt that Lex was at least partly right. She wasn't going to adjust to his choice of lover as Chloe promised. She wasn't even willing to try. It was over. Clark had lost her. It would be _him_ doing the adjusting now. 

"A penny for them." 

Clark blinked and sat up straight. "Hey, Mom." He hadn't been aware of her approach. Clark hadn't heard her footsteps crunching in the snow over the brooding cacophony of his troubled thoughts. She took a seat beside him on granite hard fertilizer bags. The blue parka she was wearing was his father's. It was long enough to protect her from the chill. 

"Tyson's gone?" she asked. 

Clark slumped back down and nodded. He didn't trust his voice. The question asked too much. 

They sat awhile, thinking their own thoughts and watching their breath flume rolling patterns in the cold. 

"Your grandfather bought me a horse once." His mother said suddenly. 

"He did?" Clark asked, his problems momentarily forgotten, curiosity getting the better of his funk. His mother rarely talked about her pampered upbringing in Metropolis. It was a _thing_ with her. He was truly interested. 

"It was trained in dressage. Beautiful it was. Sleek and glossy and it could dance better than I could, the only problem was that I liked running the barrels. That's a totally different seat, Clark. Hard and fast compared to graceful and precisioned. It even comes with a different saddle." 

"So did you switch for him?" 

"Switch?" His mother gave him a funny look and then, laughed. "Interesting word. No, even back then I preferred the country fairs with their 4-H meets as opposed to the society club events. Dad hated what he called my slumming but I did what I wanted and rode the pretty horse in the rough and tumble games. Unfortunately, it couldn't learn the change in gait. We rarely placed in competition and neither of us had any fun." 

"What did you do?" 

"I was sixteen with a bit of the wild in me, so I bravely gave the pretty creature back. The horse was more my father than me." 

"Did grandpa understand? I mean, the horse wasn't the style you wanted. It wasn't _you_. Didn't that mean something to him?" 

"No, he was furious. He called me bullheaded and didn't speak to me for days. He thought I should at least try wearing the felt hat and gray jodhpurs before I threw them away for jeans and cowboy boots." 

"But you knew they wouldn't fit." 

"Instinctively I knew they would make me happy. My passion was different from his and he couldn't understand that." She pulled up the collar of her borrowed coat, caressed the fur along the hood gently, breathed it in and sighed. "He's never understood any of my choices, Clark. Not one of them." 

"And it hurts." 

"Yes, but only when I think about it." 

"So don't think about it. Be happy in spite of him." Clark said hugging his mother in more than support. He felt good and better about losing Lana although he was not sure why. There must have been a lesson in that blast from the past somewhere. As always, she'd fixed the something he hadn't known was broke. If he was lucky, he'd figure it out later. Otherwise he wouldn't care and just go with it. He wasn't as anal as his lover. Clark didn't feel the need to pick apart everything as Lex did. 

"Good advice." She gave him quick, one armed hug back. "Are you going to call poor Lex back for dinner? That was reason your Dad sent me out here. He's hoping to quiz him about the financial feasibly of building another greenhouse over roast beef and mashed potatoes." 

"If he'll talk to me. I was sort of an asshole to him earlier." 

"If you call, he'll come." His mother smirked and brushed a finger over the white ring on Clark's left hand. "I have it on good authority the boy's head over heels crazy for you." 

Trying not to smile like an idiot, Clark curled his bottom lip over his teeth. The blush couldn't be helped. "You don't think it's just your cooking?" He bumped his mother's shoulder gently with his own. "You know, sometimes I think he pays you more attention than me." 

"Only in the kitchen, Clark. You have all the rest." 

"I do, don't I? God, Mom. I do. He's the fine boned, standard bred designed to lift his feet lightly and I'm the stocky quarter horse that likes go rip snorting around the barrels. How did we ever manage to blend the two?" 

"If I knew that Clark, my last name wouldn't be Kent." 

"Mom?" 

"It's okay, Clark. I never wanted the pretty horse. I gave him back, remember? He wasn't for me but that doesn't mean he isn't for you." 

"Lex _is_ for me. He's all I ever wanted even before I even knew I wanted it." 

"Precisely what I told your father once upon a summer ago." 

"After Lex came to you to for permission to date me? You know, he's never told me about that day. He said he asked, but not much more than that. Did he ply you with expensive champagne and quote livestock prices to Dad to impress him?" 

His mother stood up and tugged his father's coat tight around her shoulders. She looked towards the house. "Does it matter? We came to a mutually beneficial agreement." 

Clark chuckled. "You sound like Lex closing a business deal." 

"Speaking of which, shouldn't you call him? Supper's in less than an hour." 

"Yeah, I guess...but..." 

"But nothing. My roast beef waits for no one. It's medium rare or ruined. I think it's time we both went in." She announced abruptly and stalked off towards the house not waiting for him. 

More than a hundred percent sure he had missed something this go around and equally certain he wasn't going to figure it out any time soon without more clarification, Clark shrugged his shoulders and followed her. 

* * *

Lex Luthor hated Lana Lang for everything that was currently wrong with his life. 

He hated her because she wasn't talking to Clark. He hated her because her silence bothered Clark. He hated her because it bothered him that Clark was bothered. And most of all he hated her for having him sent from the warm cradle of the Kent farm back to the cold, lifeless walls of the castle. 

This wasn't home anymore. It hadn't been for months. He hated being here. Even the library that he had one time so lovingly crafted, didn't welcome him. He stood at its threshold, looking with distain at his crystal desk and cursed. 

"You had better be fucking nice to him, bitch." His eye caught the forgotten square of yellow tacked to the corner of his flat screen monitor and his mood darkened further. "Nice or the Talon will be a sole proprietorship." 

With staggered steps, Lex avoided the mesh chair behind his desk and headed for the brown leather couch. This was where Clark studied while he worked. It still echoed some warmth. He plopped down on it, kicked off his shoes and pulled his knees to his chest. To the left, at the far end was floor to ceiling fireplace, its cold grill a blatant mockery to the grate that always burned sweetly scented logs in the Kent household. 

"Enrique!" he cried, not caring that he sounded like a petulant child. "I need a fire!" 

Within moments the tall, somber man entered the room and flicked a switch on the mantle that activated the gas insert. Blue tinged flames sprung to life over the ceramic logs. It wasn't a real fire and the warmth was barely passable but it was a close as he was going to get. 

"Forgive me, sir." Enrique said after finishing his task. "We did not foresee your immanent return." 

"Neither did I." Lex grumbled wishing for an afghan. He had planned on staying at the farm and sleeping with Clark in the loft until after New Year's. 

"You haven't quarreled with Master Kent, have you?" 

Not long ago Lex would have deemed a personal question coming from one of his staff impertinent but then not long ago, his staff hadn't been his own personal cheering section in his war to win Clark. He merely snorted instead of lashing out. 

"Lana is picking up her horse. Clark wanted to speak to her alone." 

"Then it is very good of you to give him this privacy. Young master Kent will think the better of you for it." 

"You think?" Lex prompted, thinking asking dating advice from his butler should seem more ridiculous. 

"Indeed, sir." Enrique nodded and sat on the arm of the leather couch. "Trust is very important between a man and his paramour. Vital if a more meaningful future is wished for." 

"It is. Christ, Enrique, you know it is. You picked up the goddamn rings." 

"And did he accepted them?" Enrique asked one eyebrow raising. Was it Lex's imagination or was there just a tremor of excitement in the man's normally steady voice? 

"Yes, if you can believe it." 

"Ah, good. And yes, I can believe it. Your pursuit of the young man has been sincere from the onset. No other outcome was possible." 

"Good begets love." Lex quoted, for once unable to remember the author. "Not quite a sure thing when you throw a bad assed Luthor into the mix." 

Enrique's stone cold features softened. "You have never been bad, sir. Misunderstood, perhaps. Suffered for lack proper guidance most certainly, but never bad. Your father however..." 

"Is the devil incarnate. Now that's something I don't have trouble believing." 

"Nor I and with that in mind..." Enrique stood abruptly, turning back to his stoic self and cleared his throat. "I have debated the wisdom of giving you this during the holidays, sir--especially since they are particularly joyous this year but now that you're home, I fear it would imprudent to wait." 

When he reached into his waistcoat, something in Lex's stomach twisted. Enrique's tone and delivery had told him it wasn't a belated Christmas present. "Oh, Christ. Not another picture?" he moaned. Although it was foolish to do so, Lex had hoped his visit to his father had put an end to the old man's interest in Clark. No such fucking luck. 

With the steady lick of artificial flames caressing ceramic logs the only sound in the room, his manservant presented him with a small jeweler's box. It was an unsteady hand that accepted the dreaded gift. 

By itself the box was innocuous. Lex had received a hundred before. Given a hundred before. It was a trifle, just a bit of cardboard covered in black velvet. However for no other reason than his father was the bearer, this one dripped malice. It became an ugly, malevolent thing. He fought the urge to toss it away. 

"Shall I leave, sir?" 

Lex's eyes shot up. Bless him for asking. In the past, Enrique would have silently slipped from the room without his leave. His concern now was a measure of how much their employer/employee relationship had changed. Thanks to Clark, it had deepened into something like friendship. Lex shook his head no. He didn't want to be alone with this. He needed a friend. His eyes returned to the box. 

Too small for a picture. 

Reaching for his earlier jealousy for one Lana Lang, Lex used the virulent, proud emotion as an anchor to tether his courage. Feeling sufficiently bolstered, he cracked open the box. 

"No." Lex slid to the floor, clutching the box and staring aghast at it contents. "Oh, god. No, no, no." 

Glowing softly in the folds of black velvet was a tiny nugget of green. 

* * *

"Come on, come on, come on," Clark panted. Lex was between his legs, his slick chest sliding along Clark's and his cock gliding in and out of his ass with insufferable tenderness. Lex almost always started their lovemaking this way, soft and gentle and so controlled. His lover's restraint was inhuman. Tonight was no exception. The carefully measured pace drove Clark wild with need. Maybe that was the point. "Harder... come on, Lex, I want it...give it to me..." Clark moaned, his hips lifting upwards seeking more definite contact. Lex moved back with him keeping the pounding Clark was aching for just out of reach. 

"Easy, sunshine. I don't want to hurt you." 

Clark laughed at the absurdity of the warning and reached for his cautious lover's hips. His grip was hard and his fingers would leave bruises on the pale flesh but Clark was too deep in rut to care. "Goddammit, Lex!" he roared jerking him close. "Quit screwing around and fuck me!" 

In what had seemed like an unbearable amount of time, it had taken a whole lot of coaxing and eye batting to get Lex from the dinner table at the farm to the big bed in the castle. Lex had forgiven him for sending him away but his solemn demeanor had suggested he was still a little miffed. Clark couldn't blame him, and had extended his apology into the bedroom. 

Making love always made both of them happier. 

"No...I can't..." Lex sobbed as he flattened his hands on Clark's chest and pushed. The new angle of his lover's spine changed the trajectory of the hot length inside him. The friction increased and Clark felt the walls of his passage begin their tell tale quivering. His orgasm was close and Lex's should be right beside it. Not wanting to lose the new position, Clark held Lex still, planted his feet firmly on the bedspread and fucked himself on his lover's thick cock. The hands on Clark's chest balled into fists. 

"Stop!" Lex shouted. 

As the shock of the command hit his brain, Clark's body convulsed in ecstatic bliss. Suffering the strangest orgasm of his life, he unfurled his fingers and let Lex go. 

Once freed, the older man withdrew his still hard penis from Clark's twitching hole, rolled off the bed and darted for the bathroom. On his back with legs splayed open and his cock pulsing sticky ropes of come on his stomach, Clark watched through stunned eyes as Lex closed door. He jumped, his shoulders lifting from the sheets when a moment later he heard the lock click and then, in the midst of shuddering explusion, closed his eyes and winced. Until he finished coming, Clark knew that would be the extent of his movement. 

As he waited for his body to give him back control, Clark screamed his lover's name in confused frustration. 

* * *

"Lex!" 

"No, no, no." Lex whispered through the door of the bathroom, his forehead pressed against the hand still clutching the handle. He'd had fallen to the floor on his knees the instant he locked it. The impassioned cold from the white marbled tiles traveled up his legs and shriveled his oil slick genitals into a greasy, limp mass. 

What the fuck was he doing? 

Running. 

Hiding. 

Running and hiding from the only thing in his life that made him truly happy. He was insane. He was unhinged. And he was frightened of being alone again but above all, he was absolutely shock-shit terrified of green rocks that glowed. 

Green was not Clark's best colour and Lionel knew it. 

Clark's frailty struck him the moment the young man had asked Lex to fuck him harder. He wouldn't hurt him but he _could_. Lex knew how and so did his father. 

A decision had to be made. And he'd made it. 

It was at first impulsive, seemly too quick and not to be trusted but it rang true from the second it popped into his brain until this horrid, lonely moment. He had only think of Martha and her quest to protect her son for it to take root and become all encompassing. And in the name of life, love and the big picture, he was so bound to it, it made him sick. 

"Lex?" came a soft call from the other side of the door. "Please tell me what's wrong?" 

"I love you," Lex snorted, suddenly pissed off at the way things had ended up to be gracious or kind. 

A soft chuckled through the wood. "And that's bad how?" 

"My love can hurt you, Clark." 

"That again? Nothing can hurt me, Lex. Not rough sex, not nothing. You weren't hurting me. I liked it. I'm an alien. I'm invincible." 

"That's a lie." 

Another soft chuckle. "No, I'm pretty sure it isn't." 

"I got a present from my father today." Lex said getting to the point. 

"You did? What?" 

"Green meteorite. He knows, Clark." 

"Oh." 

"Yes, so you see, my love _can_ hurt you." 

Without missing a beat, Clark answered. "No, Lex you're wrong. That's your father's hate, not your love." 

"They're linked. As long as I'm with you, you're in danger. He's won Clark and there's nothing we can do about it." Lex said sadly knowing in an instant that it was true. He couldn't be what Martha wanted him to be. He couldn't even be what he wanted him to be. Lex couldn't be Clark's salvation. 

"There's a way out. There has to be. Let me in, Lex and we'll figure it out together." 

"Go home, Clark." Lex closed his eyes and pressed his hand against the door. "Be safe." 

"I am home!" Clark's indignant pronouncement vibrated the door and shimmied up Lex's spine like veins in the wood. "I live here more than the farm. My clothes are here. My books are here. The school bus picks me up here outside the gates every morning." Clark said like that was proof positive. "This is my home, Lex. Maybe you haven't noticed, but it has been for awhile. I have nowhere else to go. Nowhere I want to be. Open the door, please." 

"Not until you leave." 

"How can I? You're going to be my husband. I love you. I belong with you." Clark's fist hit the door hard enough to make the hinges squeak and Lex's eyes squinch shut in sympathy. "Dammit Lex, I belong _to_ you." 

"You don't," Lex wheezed. The pain in Clark's voice was ripping him apart. "From this moment on, you're free." 

"I don't believe it!" Clark roared. "You're breaking up with me through a bathroom door? This is stupid, Lex. Open the fucking door or I will. You known I can, if I want to." 

"Get out, Clark. Don't make me call Enrique for help." 

"But you love me." Clark said softly, the anger in voice from a moment ago gone. "Oh, geez, Lex, please. You love me. You said so." 

More certain than ever that he was insane, Lex didn't answer the passionate plea and tried to think of something else to drive the determined, love sick boy away. 

Pleading futility was proving unsuccessful. 

Lionel's meteorite threat brought out the hero streak in his young lover. Clark didn't know defeat. The sunny side of the street was too ingrown. Pulling his Kentian ideals around him like a shield, Clark was ignoring the danger and was insistent on finding a way to fight the beast that was his father. Clark didn't know what the old man was capable of, but Lex did. Lionel would lay them all to waste to get what he wanted. That could not happen. Lex would not let him destroy the Kents to get at the secret of their son. 

God love him, Clark was morally unable to understand that kind of evil. That's why he was still on the other side of the door. He was too good, too trusting and that, Lex realized, was the key. Pleading futility is and was, well...futile but there was something Clark's alien powers or apple pie upbringing wasn't impervious to. No one's was. 

Disillusionment. 

Lex sank completely to the floor and turned around so his back was resting against the door. Tears streamed down his face and his stomach rolled. He hated himself for what he was about to do. 

"It doesn't matter how I feel," he sighed quietly confident that Clark could hear him. "I've failed. Go home, to your real home and tell your mother the deal's off." 

The door beneath his shoulder blades shifted. Clark had sat down on the rug in the bedroom and was mirroring his pose. "Deal? What deal?" Clark asked. 

Lex took a deep breath. "Our marriage was arranged, Clark. Your mother asked me to court you. Dating you was not my idea. I would have never entertained the idea unless she proposed it." 

"You're lying." Clark said slowly like he was unsure of the accusation. "Mom didn't know I wanted you. And she wouldn't have never ask you to date me without finding that out first. She's a romantic, Lex. She didn't pick the pretty horse. She would not have bartered me off for without knowing." 

"Don't you understand, Clark?" Lex wondered briefly about the horse reference and then, plowed on before the distraction changed his mind. "Christ, sometimes you're too small town for words. Thank god, your mother is not. Don't you fucking get it? She would do anything keep you safe. Whether you wanted me or not was irrelevant. That I had the money and the influence to protect you, was. Your feelings even had she known them were not why she approached me. They were never part of the bargain." 

"No...no...no..." Came the denial with matching knocks to the door. Lex assumed correctly it was the back of Clark's head thumping out his refusal of the truth, or Lex's bastardized form of it, against the wood. 

"Grow up, Kent." Lex reached between his legs and twisted his flaccid penis in self flagellation. It hurt and he felt better. "Get a grip." He said, trying not to laugh hysterically at the irony as he twisted his genitals into a painful knot. 

"And why did you agree? What were you supposed to get from this _bargain_?" 

"The right to fuck your delectable ass without your father shooting my balls off with a shotgun." 

"And now you're reneging. Is that it?" There was distain in his lover's voice. Good. 

"As I said, I failed." Lex stated firmly, his confidence inanely bolstered by Clark's growing hostility. He unclenched his fingers and let go of his abused cock. At this point it wasn't good for much of anything. It hurt as much as everything else. It was a bruised mess. "I cannot keep you safe." Lex hissed through his teeth tasting pain and feeling the better for it. "I did not live up to my end of the deal, so I therefore forfeit the prize." 

"You mean, me. And it means nothing that you fell in love? You're still going give me back?" 

"Yes, it would be bad form not to." The rebuttal came out smooth as butter. Lex was finding his stroke. The lies came easier now that he found his zone. "I did not earn my reward." He said flatly picturing the Boardroom at the plant and ignoring in throb in his lap. "The contract is nullified." 

"Bastard." 

"If I were, we wouldn't be having this conversation." 

"Cold hearted prick." Clark spat through the two inch of oak, trying again. 

"Now that one I'll answer to." Lex said with a joviality he expressed easily but had a hard time feeling. "Give your mother my apologies, Clark and ask Enrique to come up here on your way out." 

Lex listened carefully for a response but only silence reigned. Clark had gone. He'd done it. By being more _Luthor_ than _Lex_ , he'd driven the light of out his life. 

Falling forward on his hands, Lex crawled to the toilet and promptly threw up. 

* * *

"Three weeks is damn long enough. I'm not going to spend one more day watching Clark mope around the farm. First thing tomorrow, I'm going over there." 

"To do what, Jonathon? Storm the castle with a shotgun and force Lex into marrying our son?" 

"He made a promise to the boy, Martha. He can't back out of it now. Firearms are definitely an option if he doesn't come to his senses and cooperate." 

"Okay, and supposing he does--which by the way I seriously doubt. What are we going to do about Lionel? He sent that meteorite to Lex as a warning. If he hears the wedding is back on, he might act on that threat." 

"He doesn't know Lex proposed. Nobody does except us." 

"But he knows they're together. I think by now, everyone knows that." 

"Maybe Luthor doesn't know what the rock does exactly. He could have been bluffing." 

"I thought about that but I'm not prepared to chance that he doesn't. Lionel Luthor is far too complex a man for me to figure out." 

"Only because he's insane. Crazy people are impossible to predict." 

"My point exactly. Nobody knows what he knows and it may be nothing." 

"So what do we do about Clark? The boy's heart broken, Martha." 

"I don't know that we should do anything, dear. Clark has said in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want us interfering in his love life anymore." 

"So he was a little upset when he found out but he got over it. He knows we only arranged this thing with Lex for his own good. He isn't angry any more." 

"No, not with us but we do have to respect his wishes. He wants to be treated like a grown up, Jonathon. And he has a right to. He deserves it." 

"He _deserves_ Lex Luthor." 

"Jonathon Kent! I do not believe you just said that!" 

"Well, don't get too worked up. Remember what I said about crazy people." 

"Call the Daily Planet. I'm in love with a mad man with a heart of gold." 

"No, just a guy who has a son that's driving him nuts with worry." 

"Oh love, it will be all right." 

"You think so? Cause I hope so. You really think so?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

"Because it has to." 

* * *

"You know that isn't good for the insert, sir. It was made to burn gas, not paper." 

With his arm raised in mid throw, Lex sneered at his manservant. He'd been tossing wedding invitations into the fire like playing cards into a hat. It was cathartic. He didn't need a critique. "Don't you have some silver to buff somewhere?" He snapped before clicking his wrist and finishing his throw. It fell short and drifted down on the flagstones. The pile of missed shots had been growing exponentially with the amount of scotch he imbibed. Lex shrugged and reached for another cream coloured, gold engraved, useless envelope. Enrique moved the half empty box out arm's length. 

"You didn't eat your dinner. Cook is concerned." Enrique sat on the arm of the couch and lovingly nestled the box of wedding invitations in his lap like they meant something. "We all are." 

"I wasn't hungry. Now give me back my fucking box and get the hell out." 

"You should call him." 

That got Lex's attention. He looked up hopefully. "Why? Has he called me?" 

"Not that I am aware and I don't expect he would." Enrique sniffed. "Nor should he. You're the one that missed the step." 

Lex slumped back down into the couch. "You haven't any idea what you're talking about." 

Lex debated getting up and snagging one of the envelopes that littered hearth but couldn't seem to get his limbs to move. 

"Not specifically, no." Enrique replied with his smooth as silk voice. "Would you care to enlighten me? Perhaps I could help." 

Lex took a rather large swig of scotch and pointedly ignored the offer. "Has Gabe Sullivan called?" 

Enrique shook his head at him as Lex took another drink. "Yes, sir. He'll be here tomorrow at ten. The lawyers will be here a half hour before." 

"Good." Lex said absently as he stretched out a toe. Maybe he could kick one of the invitations into the fire. The end of his loafer fell short a couple of inches so he relaxed back down into the leather couch and concentrated on what he did have at hand. His drink. 

"You could start with flowers." 

"Whaa?" Lex asked, his drink halfway to his mouth. Some it's amber contents dribbled down his chin and on his shirt. 

"Roses, red. Master Clark looks brilliant in that colour." 

"Master Clark looks _brilliant_ in just about fucking anything but that's beside the point." Lex glared at the stain on his shirtfront with more disgust than it deserved. "I'm not buying him flowers. An education, yes. And his father a greenhouse before I go. And Martha, oh fuck. What do you give the woman who has everything?" 

"A married son?" his manservant offered with a hopeful lilt in his voice. 

"Fuck off, Enrique. I'm not going to marry him." 

"Pray tell, why not? You love him. That much is patently obvious. You haven't been this much of a spoiled brat since you were nine." 

Sticking his tongue out would have felt so, so good but he refrained. Lex had no desire to prove Enrique's point for him. He settled for sneer. Much more grown up. "So?" 

"You don't love easily, Alexander. You never have." 

Oh, Christ. Complete first names. Enrique had not dared since Lex had crashed head first into puberty. And if history meant anything, he was in line for a lecture. Lex emptied the contents of his crystal glass and hefted his sluggish body up off its leather enclave and stumbled in the direction of the bar. First names meant truth, a truth he most likely didn't need to hear. Lex decided what he probably needed more of if anything, was scotch older than the man badgering him. 

"Have you ever considered that I'm not good enough for him?" Lex asked after his glass once again full and he'd sampled the contents generously. "I'm a cold hearted prick or haven't you heard?" 

Enrique walked over to him, bracketed his shoulders with his big hands and gently positioned him on a barstool. "You under value your worth, Alexander," the older man said softly. 

"My worth...no." Lex snorted. Scottish whiskey burned his nasal passages. "Never that. I know who I am and how much money I have in the bank. I know I have an intellect that the scions at NASA would give their first born to tap into. I also know that I have a sexual quality super models pant over and in the closet leading men would risk an Oscar over. But my worthiness in respect to Clark Kent, Kansas farm boy at large...well, that's an entirely different matter." 

"It was the green rock, the gift from your father." Enquire stated flatly and Lex's hand tightened on his glass. If he had a hairline, his eyebrows would be in it. 

In no mood for dissembling, Lex let go a mountain of pent up hurt and rasped out, "Yeah, it was fucking rock." 

It wasn't a confession. Enrique was uncannily perceptive but had no real idea of what he was talking about. Lex wasn't giving away Clark's secrets his fuzzed brain assured him. He was just tired and lonely and needed to share his grief with somebody who cared before he flew apart at the seams. He would be careful not to say more than he should. 

"The gift frightened you." Enrique said. 

"Nearly enough to make me ruined a very fine pair of trousers." 

"Bloody, fucking hell." 

"You swore." Lex said numbly as he watched his normally staid butler round the bar to procure a glass and fill it from the same decanter Lex had been imbibing from. 

Enrique pulled up his own bar stool and took a healthy swig of appropriated scotch before speaking. "It is totally unacceptable that he should have this kind of fucking control over you." 

The innate weirdness of his elegant manservant swearing and swilling scotch like a drunken sailor irrigated the inebriation saturating his brain. Lex's natural sharpness bled through his alcoholic fog and returned crisp enough to make his eyes water. Or so he told himself when he felt wetness on his cheeks. 

"There was nothing I could do, Enrique," Lex said, sniffing hard. He refused to wipe his nose on his sleeve. "Lionel has me by the short hairs such as they are and that's saying a lot. I had no choice but to leave Clark." 

"All because of a green rock in a black velvet box." Enrique said somberly searching Lex's eyes with his own. Lex steeled himself against their soul ripping intrusion--Clark was the only other person he'd allowed this uncomfortably close--and tried to return the gaze as honestly as he could. 

"Because of a rock, yes." Lex said, his heart beating in his throat. "Don't ask why. I can't tell you." 

"I assure you, Alexander, I do not need to know the exact means of your father's coercion to be repulsed. I just need to know that it is." The butler refilled his glass, leaving Lex's empty and took another swallow. A tangible shadow of sadness passed over his normally hard to define features. "Your mother would have never stood for this." 

Until he mentioned her, Lex had forgotten Enrique had been in service as far back as when Lillian was alive. He'd been a kid then. Servants like Enrique simply were. One didn't take notice and Lex hadn't. He didn't know this man, not back then and not especially now, but he kinda wished he had or did. The loyal Luthor retainer cared profoundly and had depths of intellectual reasoning Lex was only beginning to comprehend. If Clark were here, he would have called the older man 'cool'. Feeling the ground under his feet become firmer, Lex braved a twist of a smile. 

"Nah," he drawled. "She would have probably had the old boy knocked off way before now." 

"Never. She had more class that than that." Enrique said with cold conviction. "If she hadn't become ill, Mistress Lillian would have eventually ruined him financially in a messy divorce and then walked away smiling with you in tow." Enrique gave Lex a soft smile. "You were all she talked about in her last days. She adored you beyond all else." 

"I know." He conceded. Lex remembered his mother's smiles, so wide and full of warmth. Fifteen years later, and they still managed to make him feel loved with barely a thought. She had only one rival. 

"And she would have adored Master Clark. Cherished him on sight." 

Lex laughed. "How could she not. Once exposed, it's extremely hard not to." 

"True. He is..." The butler tipped his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. "Special, shall we say?" When Lex nodded a silent yes, Enrique finished his second drink in one go and continued. "Now about your father. You have to confront him." 

"Excuse me?" 

"Tell him you're not afraid." 

"I can't." Lex said, his eyes wide and full of panic. "I am." 

"Your father is a bully, Alexander. He will back down." 

"You don't understand, Enrique and I can't enlighten you but the knowledge Lionel holds could destroy Clark utterly and completely. I cannot and will not fuck with that." 

"And you're absence from Master Clark's life is not destroying him now?" 

"I wouldn't know." Lex snarked. His inner petulant child had returned. "Farm boy hasn't called to say so." 

"As well he shouldn't." Enrique sniffed. "Master Kent has quality and a degree of discernment beyond the measure of the Metropolis social register. You're the one-" 

"I know. I know, that missed the step. Yeah, I get it. I'm the one that fucked up." 

"To put it mildly. Be your mother's son, Alexander and not your father's. Claim your future." 

"And damn the consequences?" 

"What your father knows, he knows already. Nothing can change that. Whatever it is, it's fact. It's happened. What he needs to be informed of now is that you know what he knows and it doesn't matter." 

"Call his bluff." 

"Precisely." 

"But he's not bluffing." 

"Then it's your job to show that him that he indeed is." 

Lex nodded thoughtfully. As circular as the logic was, the idea did make of strange sort of sense. And since this whole situation was off the wall, it might be doable. 

At Christmas Lex had flatly denied he was with Clark solely to obtain his secrets but what if he tucked tail between his legs and confirmed it now? Lionel believed in avarice over love and expected his son as a good 'Luthor' to believe the same. It wouldn't really come as a shock to the old man to hear he was right. Lionel's over inflated ego would demand no less. 

Grumbling and growling about wasting his time, Lex would admit that the Kent boy had nothing of value to offer other than being a good lay. In follow up, Lex would report quickly that he'd cut his losses and dumped the farm boy three weeks ago. That should make the old man proud. Lionel lived for the days when Lex bowed to his greater wisdom. They came so rarely anymore. Lex doubted his father would give his sending of the green meteorite a second thought. He'd be too busy celebrating his lost boy coming back to the fold. 

"So I let him think he was right about the wrong thing. That plan has a fair chance of working but a good portion of its success is based on the dissolution of my sexual relationship with Clark. My father has to believe I don't have reason to want him." 

"And love is not a reason?" 

"In his eyes, not a credible one. Lionel's heart is too hard to understand the softer emotions." 

"The end defeats the means." Enrique muttered, focusing inward. "Yes, I can see how that would be a problem. His disinterest is based on yours. There must be an another way." 

It was at that moment, while watching the man that was more friend than employee furrow his eyebrows in deep thought, Lex realized there wasn't another way. Lionel was never going to become disinterested. The old man plotted Lex's life as carefully as his own. Lex gently squeezed the arm of Enrique's pristine black jacket to get his attention. 

"Enrique, please." Lex pleaded, his voice tight with emotion. "I appreciate what you're doing more than you can know but it's over. There is no solution. Clark is not my future. I.." Lex choked and bit his lip. Only after a long moment was he able to continue. "I have to let him go." 

"That isn't fair, Alexander." Enrique protested, his cool eyes flashing hot with indignant fire. 

"Yeah. No, shit. But I'm all out of options. I'll go to Lionel with my pack of lies to keep Clark safe, that's still the wisest course but I won't pursue him after." 

"Don't give up, Alexander. There will be a wedding this spring." 

Not having the stomach or the heart to argue, Lex rose from his barstool and gave the big man a rare hug. 

With purpose in his step, he left the library without looking back and headed up to his bedroom to pack. After tomorrow's meeting with Gabe Sullivan, he would be leaving for an extended stay in Metropolis. 

* * *

"Give it a rest, Pete." 

"Oooh, somebody needs to get laid." 

"One more word, and I'll drop kick your ass out the loft window. Just see if I won't." 

"Shit, Clark. Loosen up, will ya? All I did was ask about the ring. It's from Lex, isn't it? What is it? You've been wearing it since New Year's. Everyone in school has noticed and been wondering. It's on your ring finger. It has to mean something." 

"It means nothing." 

"Yeah, right. Nothing, right." 

"He dumped me, Pete. The going got rough and Lex got going." 

"What? No way." 

"Way." 

"And he gave you a ring busting full of diamonds the size of my eyes as a send off?" 

"No, he proposed first. Lex asked me to marry him a week before Christmas." 

"And you said yes?" 

"Yeah, I was a stupid idiot and accepted. I might have even cried." 

"So what? In celebration, you broke up? Okay, not quite getting the whole guy on guy thing here. Okay, I'm never going to get the whole guy on guy thing but isn't that kinda weird? Isn't he supposed to be like your fiance now or is this some kind of gay ritual I'm not familiar with?" 

"He bailed. No ritual. He didn't need one. He hid behind his morality or perhaps I should say business acumen and left me." 

"So in other words, you're saying he freaked and got cold feet. You're a high school student, Clarkbar. Kinda hot, maybe a little bit sexy--which is not to say I've noticed but you're seventeen years old, a kid, _young_. Did that have something do with it?" 

"No...well, not really. It wasn't my age that made him back away but he did treat me like a kid when he did." 

"Loops and loops here." 

"Something happened, Pete. Something bad and Lex unilaterally decided we'd be much better off separated before even asking me what I thought about it. It was like my opinion didn't even count. It was done. Over. That's it." 

"Did you try to talk him about it?" 

"I would have but he pissed me off. The thing about loving someone is that you let them in. They know exactly what makes you happy and what makes you not. Lex is smart--brilliant even--and he got that. My insecurities were the first thing he went for. I see that now. It was pretty effective. I was angry at the wrong person for over a week." 

"And now you're just pissed at me by default." 

"Shit, am I? I'm sorry, Pete." 

"It's okay. You miss him." 

"Yeah, big time." 

"Does Lex know that?" 

"He should." 

"That's not what I asked, Clark." 

"I'm not going crawling on my hands and knees to tell him, Pete. Fuck him. If he wants me, he's going to have to come to me." 

"Cool. You have the richest man in the country by the balls and you're going to twist them. My hat's off to you, Clark Kent. Shit, Clarkbar, when you decide to do something different, you really do something _different_." 

"I don't have him by the balls. I couldn't. They're too big to get a grip on. And I don't want to be different. I want normal. God, do I. I know it's stupid but I want the white picket fence. I want the quiet nights after a long hard day's work. I want the arguments and I want the make ups. I want loving him to be easy. I don't want it to be this hard. Shit, Pete. I just want to be with him." 

"Wow, Clark." 

"Wow?" 

"Yeah, wow. You know if you feel this way, you should do something about it. I would." 

"I can't. It's complicated." 

"Oh yeah, the kid thing. He's not treating you like a grown up. Almost forgot with all your wining." 

"Fuck you, Pete Ross." 

"And that was real mature. No wonder Lex treats you like you're ten years old." 

"Stop it. That's not fair. You don't know everything." 

"Like I haven't been telling you that all along. Hetro remember? You--gay--Lex. Three things that equal the same and I don't get one of them. Say something sane, Clark and make me understand." 

"I love him and I'm nothing without him." 

"Kinda scary but good enough." 

"Now what do I do?" 

"Swallow your pride and tell him?" 

"He already knows how I feel. I've told him I love him a thousand times." 

"Yeah, and that's why you're spending Saturday night with me. Tell him again, Clarkbar." 

"It wouldn't do any good. He doesn't want me. He told me to take a hike through the bathroom door. I didn't even see his face when he broke up with me." 

"Shit, that's cold. Through the bathroom door? Really?" 

"Really." 

"Well, fuck him then. You know what you should do? You should find the hottest guy in school and suck his dick." 

"Pete!" 

"What? Did I get it wrong? You like that kind of thing, don't you?" 

"Sucking dick? Trust me, Pete. You do not want to have this conversation with me." 

"No?" 

"No." 

"Right. So Mr Kent, what have we learned today?" 

"Don't talk about blow jobs with Pete Ross. He couldn't handle what I know." 

"Fine, I'll go with that. What else?" 

"Talk to Lex?" 

"No, I've changed my mind about that one. Try again." 

"Ah...don't talk to Lex?" 

"And? Remember what I just said?" 

"What? Suck someone else's cock? Oh come on, Pete. I can't do that." 

"Why not? What's one dick from another?" 

"You want me to suck yours?" 

"What? Hell, no!" 

"You sure, Pete? I'm pretty good. I guarantee I can make you come in under a minute." 

"Clark! You wouldn't!" 

"Of course not, you dolt. You turn me on as much as Pamela Anderson and believe me, that's not saying much. Big hair and bigger tits don't do a thing for me." 

"Oh, very funny. You're comparing me with a surgically enhanced white girl. That's sick, Clark." 

"So is imaging I wouldn't care who's cock was in my mouth. Point taken, sweetheart?" 

"Point taken and don't call me that. Look, suck dick or don't suck dick, what you've got to do is make Joe Billionaire pant for your attention by thinking someone else has it." 

"I suppose I could flirt." 

"There you go. You've got it now. Flirting. That's the ticket." 

"But with who? How many gay guys do you know in Smallville?" 

"Besides you and Lex? None. That could be a problem." 

"Ya think?" 

"You could go to one of those gay bars in Metropolis?" 

"And Lex would see me how? There are tons of them." 

"Did I say I had this figured out? Give me a minute." 

"Don't' bother. I don't want to make him jealous, Pete. It'll hurt him." 

"I thought that was the point." 

"It's not, not really. He hurt me, that's true but knowing what that's doing to me, I don't think I could do that to him. It would be cruel and he really doesn't deserve it." 

"Okay, then just make him beg. What harm could that do?" 

"Beg? Lex Luthor beg for me, Clark Kent?" 

"Yeah, what of it?" 

"He'd never do it. He's too proud and besides, I wouldn't care to see him sink that low." 

"Why not? It would be way too cool." 

"Way too cool? Well, maybe. Having someone as hot as him beg for me could be I suppose." 

"You think he's hot?" 

"Fuck, yeah. I've got a hard on just thinking about him." 

"Ew, Clark." 

"You asked." 

"Yeah, and remind me not to do that again." 

"You got it. So who do I flirt with?" 

"Lana at the Talon?" 

"You've got to be kidding. Even if she'd let me close enough to talk to, Lana ranks right up there with you and Pamela." 

"Damn, you're difficult. No wonder Lex is pissed with you. Fine then, try Chloe. She's still on speaking terms with you, isn't she?" 

"Yeah, but still a girl last time I checked." 

"Then it might make him wonder, right? Make him think twice about whose team you're playing for." 

"Oh, please. Lex is bi-sexual. I'm the gay one. I don't do girls. He knows that." 

"You're sure? You've come right out and told him?" 

"Well, no. Not right out." 

"Then we have a winner ladies and gentleman." 

"Pete..." 

"I'll talk to Chloe. She'll understand. I don't get it, but she loves seeing the two of you together. Sometimes she almost squeals. It's weird." 

"Don't remind me." 

"What?" 

"Nothing. So when do we do it? Lex and I don't exactly travel in the same social circles." 

"Two days? Friday? It's the Talon's two year anniversary. As part owner, he should show." 

"Okay, it's date." 

"Whoa, man. Nobody said nothing about a date." 

"Get a grip, Pete. I was talking about Chloe." 

"Knew that. Right. A date. With Chloe. Knew that." 

"And repressed or not, I know you're a good friend, Pete. Thanks." 

"No problem. Repressed? I don't get it. Clark?" 

"Never mind, Pete. Never mind. One sexual crisis at a time." 

"What? Okay. Okay, Clark?" 

"Yeah, buddy. It's okay." 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah." 

* * *

"You're lying." 

"Excuse me?" Lex almost dropped his water bottle from where it was poised an inch from his lips. They were in his father's private steam room, Lex on the top tier and Lionel on the bottom, clothed in nothing more than white towels around their hips and an air of barely masked hostility. The relaxed atmosphere was surface only. He took a quick sip and tucked the vessel into the slats of the bench he was sitting on. 

"Do you take me for a fool, Alexander?" 

"Of course not, Dad." A familiar tingle of doom went down Lex's spine. It wasn't a super power like Clark's but it was reliable enough. Lex concentrated on his breathing and tried not to fidget. "Which part of my story don't you believe? Perhaps I can extrapolate." 

"You didn't leave wonder boy." 

"I haven't seen him in weeks," Lex said, biting the inside of his cheek for control. "Call your assistant if you need proof." 

"The lovely Martha Kent? Unnecessary. I know you haven't been with her boy since she returned to work the beginning of January. She's been unusually somber these last weeks. For some unfathomable reason, I think she's upset about the break up." 

"I treated her son like a whore. I think she has a right to be." 

"You care about what she thinks?" 

"Not at all. Just stating fact." 

"Another lie. I can hear the tension in your voice, Alexander. It troubles you." 

If keeping Clark safe wasn't so important, Lex would have told his father to stuff his perceptions up his ass. Playing the obedient son rankled. 

"It wasn't a pretty break up, Dad. I didn't handle it well. It was...messy." 

"I'm sure it was. Tell me, son. Did he let you down gently?" 

"Me?" 

Lionel chuckled and shook his head. "You didn't think I'd figure it out, did you? I'm old, son but not senile. My memory is intact. You been rebuffed by a Kent. I know the symptoms intimately." 

Jesus fucking Christ, the man may be a bastard but he was also truly amazing. Lex should have known he couldn't pull the wool over the old boy's eyes and in retrospect, was foolish to expect he could, but this...oh, damn. This was too much. While trying to convince his father he did not love Clark, he had achieved the opposite to the extreme and had made him believe Clark did not love him. The inference that Lionel had been rejected by his lover's mother barely registered. Laughter bubbled up in his throat. He didn't quite know how to feel but hysteria seemed an appropriate reaction as any. 

Lionel frowned and canted his head in Lex's direction. He was two feet below so Lex couldn't see the dark emotion in his father eyes and was not inclined to try. "Alexander?" Lionel prompted when Lex failed to respond immediately to his accusation. 

"Martha?" he blurted not having a better response readily available. "You went after Martha Kent?" 

"Is that surprise I hear? If I remember correctly, she's quite the handsome woman." 

"Yes, Dad, she is. I've had a thought or two about her myself." It would disgust Clark to know, but yes, Lex thought his mother a desirable woman. To Lionel, however it was an easy enough admission. "But she's married and loves her husband pathetically. If I'm surprised at anything, it's you deliberately setting yourself up for failure." 

"I know. Appalling, isn't it? I've always had a weakness for red hair but it was a momentary lapse, I assure you. I got over it." 

Now that was a lie. Lex knew from personal experience you did not stop loving Martha Kent once you had started. It was infection without a cure. The same went for her son. Lex followed his father's lead and jumped on the denial boat with him. He didn't know where it would head, but it had to better than where he was. 

"I'll get over Clark." Lex responded, his words flying off the cuff. If he didn't think too hard about what he was saying, he could sound like he meant it. It wouldn't do for his father to realize how important Clark was to him. 

"Ah...so, you admit it. The Kent boy did leave you dangling in the wind and it hurt. You were telling the truth when you came here last Christmas. You were with him because you'd fallen in love." His father barked out a laugh, putting the maniac in maniacal. "That was the secret you didn't want me to know. How could I have been so blind?" 

"I don't love him." Lex asserted with barely a hitch in voice. Picturing Pete Ross in his head as he spoke made it possible. He could not have said the words otherwise. "I told you not ten minutes ago, I seduced Clark because I thought there was more to his mutant ass than met the eye." 

"That might be how it started but it didn't end up that way. Even when you found there was nothing spectacular about him, you stayed. You didn't want to let him go, did you?" 

"I'm ambitious, Dad. Not a homosexual." Lex stated confidently bolstered in the knowledge that this time he wasn't lying. He liked fucking women as much as men. He had just never fell in love with one. 

"Fine. Tell me you don't want Clark Kent in your bed and we'll let the subject die." 

Shit, shit, shit. Lex didn't have enough of an imagination to get around that one. Despite the danger to Clark, there were no half truths he could mutter or imaginary scenarios he could conjure in his head. There was only one answer and it was out before he had time to reconsider. 

"I _want_ him," Lex ground out. 

"I thought so. Lex, Lex, Lex. When will you learn you can't fool your own flesh and blood?" 

"Obviously never," he snarked. 

"And you'd do well to remember that. Another thing you should remember is that we Luthors turn weakness into strength. Defeats into victories." 

"Got it, Dad. Excuse me a moment while I jot that down in my PDA." 

"Sarcasm doesn't become you, son." 

"You asked a question and I answered." Lex said tersely. He was quite fond of sarcasm at the moment and didn't feel like giving it up. It was the only defense he had. "Now tell me why." 

"I want you to take him." 

"What?" Lex gasped. He stared in shock at the top of his father's head. 

"Go after him. Win the Kent boy. Make him yours, completely and wholly. Do not take no for an answer." 

"Is this because you lost Martha? Are we in some way regaining the family honour by me pursuing Clark, another Kent?" 

Slowly, Lionel turned, his sightless eyes locking on his son. "Do you object?" 

"No, just asking." Lex flipped back as smoothly as he could. Gazing back into those bottomless depths, he wondered briefly if his father had lost his mind along with his sight but perhaps that was presumptuous. 

How ever difficult it was to comprehend, it might be possible that Lionel did have a hard nugget of a heart and Martha Kent had managed to crack it. "How far into enemy territory do you want me carry the Luther pennant?" he asked smoothly, willingly offering himself up as the method of his father's revenge. 

"All the way. Brand him with our name, Alexander. Make him one of us." Lionel finished, his voice steely and hard. 

"Jonathon won't be too pleased to have me as a son in law." 

The sly smile that Lex had learned to fear at a very young age formed on Lionel's thin lips. "No, he won't be, will he." 

"What about heirs? If I marry Clark, he's not likely to produce any." Lex said, once again bending the truth. He wasn't a hundred percent sure he could impregnate his beautiful alien lover but he was hopeful. 

"I'm not asking you to be faithful, son. I'd actually prefer it if you were not." Lex unclenched his teeth when the old man lounged back against the bench beside Lex's thigh on his elbows. He was grateful to no longer be in direct line of those dead eyes. "When the time is right, choose a woman you think befits your status and we'll work out the legalities of parental rights later." 

"Is April 5 a good day for you?" Lex quipped hoping he didn't sound too anxious. It was possible that if his father learned how truly happy his spiteful request made his son he might relent. Lionel knew the benefits of keeping one's adversaries wanting and on edge. He'd be displeased to learn he'd given Lex everything in a fit of pique. 

"So soon?" Lionel paused and once again tipped his mangy head of hair in his direction as if he didn't need eyes to see his son. "Is he that important? I do recall hearing a tape of a speech you made not long ago. It was at the shit factory Christmas party in front of your employees, I believe. Something about him being your home, your family? Please, tell me it wasn't true." 

Lex bristled. Having an in house spy still bothered him. He wanted a name but now was not the time to test his father's patience. "Does it matter if it were? Productivity has been higher this month than when the plant opened." 

"Indeed? Then, kudos. There's nothing like working the crowd once you get the hang of it, is there? You make me proud, son." 

"Thanks, Dad, now if you'll excuse me, I really should be getting back to Smallville. In light of recent events, I have some calls to make." 

"Your lawyer being one of them, I hope. A detailed pre-nup would not be out of order in this instance." 

Lex stifled the urge to laugh in the old man's face. This morning he had met with his lawyers and had, among other codicils, made Clark his sole beneficiary in the case of his death and that was without the promise or hope of marriage. In the unlikely case of a divorce, Lex was willing to give him more than the law allowed. If he was coerced into a prenuptial agreement, it would be a legal document that forced Clark to walk away with half his worth, not fractured parts of it. Clark was his everything. They didn't have to be together to deserve his all. His father would freak if he knew how much he was willing to give, with the Kents right along side him for company. 

"I'll keep that in mind," Lex said, dropping his towel and his faade of indifference on his way out. He was grinning broadly. He had come here to today to lose but had somehow won. The smile on his face was so wide it hurt. 

He was going home. 

Home to Clark. 

The smile faltered. 

Lex prayed to who was ever willing to listen, he was still welcome. 

* * *

"Martha? Are you all right? You look sick. Who was on the phone?" 

"Lex, looking for Clark." 

"Lex? Did he say why?" 

"He said quite a lot actually once he got through apologizing. He was stuttering, Jonathon. I've never heard him do that before. It was...unnerving. He sounded like he was terrified and Lex is never terrified." 

"Yeah, falling in love can do that to the best of us. And it's scary as hell when you find it's with someone that's your better." 

"I don't understand." 

"You never did. You couldn't. It didn't go both ways. That's just how it worked." 

"All right, then, Jonathon Kent. Pretend I'm dumb and explain it to me." 

"Lord, woman, you're as bright as the sunrise and that's sort of the point. You could never be dumb but being from the other side, I don't think it's possible for you to understand. You weren't me and you aren't, not definitely now, Lex. You and Clark are the beautiful ones. You're special. Lex is more like me. We know that we don't deserve either of you and spend every waking moment trying to convince our selves we do." 

"Nonsense. I loved you from the moment I saw you, Jonathon. Without an ounce of hesitation." 

"Yeah, I know you did but then again, I didn't. Not really and not for a very long time." 

"Clark feels the same about Lex. I'm sure of it." 

"Yeah, probably but Lex hasn't had enough time to believe it. He wants to, Martha but he's still frightened." 

"His voice didn't tremble when he asked where Clark was tonight." 

"That's good. It's sounds like Lex has made up his mind and found enough courage to go after what he wants. About time. For awhile I thought I read the boy wrong. I hope you put him out of his misery and told him Clark was at the Talon." 

"Don't you care what Lionel will think?" 

"Can you remember a time when I have?" 

"No, but this is different and you know it." 

"Lex is sure it's okay?" 

"He seemed to be. He said Lionel wasn't a threat anymore. Oh, Jonathon, what if he's wrong?" 

"Lex wouldn't put our boy in danger." 

"I know that. I'm pretty sure I do." 

"Then what's the problem?" 

"You're not afraid, are you? Lionel has the power to ruin all our lives." 

"Not if we don't let him think he does." 

"That's what Lex said on the phone." 

"Really? Then the man has more horse sense than I thought. It's gonna work out, Martha." 

"How can you think that?" 

"Because once upon a time ago, a pretty red head with a heart full of hope told me it had to." 

"Oh, love. And here I thought you weren't listening." 

"I always listen to you, my sweet darling. Only this time I _heard_." 

"Will miracles ever cease?" 

"In this household, not anytime soon, I'd imagine. Miracles happen every day. Anyway Lionel isn't the real problem, Clark is. I've got my fingers crossed right now hoping the boy won't deck Lex before he has a chance to speak his peace." 

"Clark wouldn't hurt Lex, Jonathon." 

"No? The boy's been spurned, Martha. He's gone from mad to moping and right back to mad these last few days. There isn't a battered fence post on the farm that can't attest to it. If this thing with Lex isn't solved soon, the cows are going to grazing the public gardens in front of City Hall before long. There won't be fence enough to keep them in." 

"I see. Do you feel up to going to town for a coffee? I hear in celebration of the Talon's two year anniversary, they're free tonight." 

"Is there a band we can sit, listen and hold hands to?" 

"That's what the flyer said." 

"Then I might be persuaded. We can even stay for the fireworks." 

"Fireworks? The paper didn't mention anything about that. Are you sure?" 

"Lex and Clark in the same room?" 

"Ah, yes. How foolish of me." 

"Woman, you're a lot of things, but foolish? Not since you married me. I love you more than corn, Martha Kent." 

"Say creamed corn, and I'll believe you." 

"Hate the stuff." 

"But you'll eat it for me." 

"I'll eat it." 

"Then grab your coat, Jonathon Kent. We're about to see a another miracle." 

* * *

Roses, red. 

Lex had always hated how the small town caf tried to emulate an Egyptian oasis, but tonight he was thankful for it. The gold and the green and the over indulgence of ferns went well with the twelve dozen of the twelve dozen ruby coloured roses with buds the size of his fist he had ordered special for the celebration. 

The reds were hybrids, oversized and plastic. Living and beautiful and yet, devoid of aroma. They were a mere decoration he had imported from Metropolis. To compensate Lex had interspersed the large reds buds with small tufts of Smallville yellow. Enrique had been pleased by his inspiration and that had pleased Lex. 

The yellow roses were smaller, understated but purebred and honest. Their scent was sweet, light and battled successfully with the heavy aroma of brewing coffee. Lex bent his head to smell the clean yellow rose in his lapel. If it was an affectation he would have chosen a larger red bud to go with his dark blue suit and crisp white shirt but tonight was not about appearances. Discounting the probable groveling and begging, it was largely about truth. 

A romantic notion perhaps, and dare he admit, _sappy_? Lex spied Clark sitting across the room with Chloe. Immediately his breath shortened and knees weakened. He was wearing jeans and a long sleeved red tee shirt edged in yellow around the neck. 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

Yeah, he was a sappy, romantic fool and for once he was okay with it. 

How's that for truth? 

* * *

Roses, red. 

"What colour do you want, Clark?" 

"Light brown with sugar. Three teaspoons." 

"Get with it, Kent. I'm not talking about your coffee. What colour rose do you want?" Chloe plucked a thorn stripped red rose from the crystal vase in the middle of the low table and smiling brightly, tucked it behind her ear twisting the ends into her spiky blonde hair. "Can't you see? They're all over the place in the official colours of Smallville High. Everyone's wearing one. They're gorgeous." 

Sitting, slumped down on the battered couch in the most furthest point of the Talon, Clark looked around the room but was hard pressed to see what Chloe did. She didn't know it but he'd seen better. 

The Talon with its bounty of flowers reminded Clark of Lex's bedroom minus the apples and oranges. It was pretty but in direct comparison, the coffee shop lost. It lacked a certain pale skinned centerpiece to really make it beautiful. When he heard Chloe squeak, Clark guessed the centerpiece had arrived. 

"Oh, god, Clark." Beside him on the sofa, Chloe sat on her bare feet, her four inch wedgies were discarded under the coffee table and craned her neck. "I think he's here. I can't see the front door for bodies but it has to be Lex. It wasn't sure he'd show," she mumbled speaking his thoughts. After bouncing a few times on the cushions for a better look, she turned to him and smiled. Her blue eyes were unnaturally bright. "Quick, Clark. Pick a flower for your hair." 

Purposely ignoring the commotion at the door--gods, he so wanted to look--Clark leveled his gazed at his excited friend. A point needed to be made. "Chloe, I'm gay but not that gay. I'm not wearing a flower in my hair." 

"Between your teeth?" Chloe sang and then, pouted. "No, you'd have to be naked and stretched out on his bed for that to work." 

"Chloe!" Clark yelled when her face went suspiciously vague and her focus drifted in familiar way that made Clark squirm. 

"Right!" she snapped and then, blushed deeply. Clark's cheeks went red in sympathy. "If I'm your girlfriend tonight, I guess you won't need a flower to get his attention." Chloe got off her heels and tucked them under her skirt. "Do you want to put your arm around my shoulders?" she asked, looking up at him, her side pressing against his ribs, her knees in his lap. "It would, you know, make it look believable." 

"Oh, okay." With effort Clark lifted his arm, it felt like a dead weight and Chloe ducked underneath. She grabbed his hand, the one by the flower in her ear and pulled him closer. He expected it to feel weird. It didn't. Having Chloe this close felt nice, comfortable. Clark placed his free hand under her thigh just below one bent knee, pulled her into the enclave of his lap and left it there. 

"You like this," she said, her words breathing hot tufts just above the collar of his shirt. 

Clark looked down. Chloe was already looking up. "Yeah, you feel good in my arms." 

Chloe trembled. "Define good." 

"Pleasant. Nice. Warm." 

"Warm but not hot?" 

Clark smiled and softly kissed the nose so close to his lips. "I wish it did. It would make my life easier if I could fall in love someone as wonderful as you." 

"I wish it too." 

"Chloe..." 

"Clark, stop. You don't have to say it. I've accepted how you feel a long time ago. I don't like it, but I have. You can't love me." 

"But I do." Clark squeezed her and brought her deeper into his hold. It was a very intimate, very _heterosexual_ gesture. The crowds of people milling around them were bound to get the wrong impression but Clark didn't care. The woman in his lap was more important to him than gossip. "I do love you, Chloe Sullivan. If you weren't my friend, I'd be very sad. Please tell me I'm not being cruel by holding you and liking it. You comfort me. I need to feel you." 

"God, Clark." Chloe ducked her head and rubbed her cheek into his chest. "What the hell am I suppose to say to that?" 

Clark stroked her hair and whispered, "I don't know. That you need me too? Please say you do. Please, Chloe, please. I want it so much." 

For a long moment, nothing was said. Clark held Chloe and Chloe held Clark. The celebration, the roses and the complimentary coffee were forgotten. The heartbreak and confusion he'd felt these last weeks were made bearable in what he was surprised to discover was his _best_ friend's arms. Lex was his love, Pete was his chum and buddy but Chloe was his lifeline. This small, tow headed blonde whose sparkling personality annoyed him to no end was his true confidante, the one he wanted to confess to. The one he wanted absolution from. The one whose opinion mattered. If he hadn't fallen in love with Lex and hadn't felt all the same things to the max and more, he would have chosen her or tried to. Angelic looks aside, Lana Lang had nothing on Chloe Sullivan. The woman was much greater than the girl. 

"Clark?" 

"Yeah, Chloe?" Clark rubbed his nose into her hair. It looked sharp and spiky but was amazingly soft. He breathed deep. And it smelt good. 

"Let up. You're swishing my rose." 

"Oh, sorry." Smiling ruefully, he sat back and let his arms fall from her back to coil down into a lose hold around the base of her spine just above the top of her skirt. She was still in his lap but now she could move out it if she wanted to. 

"It's okay, Clark." 

"Yeah? Really?" 

"Really, yeah. It's nice here." Chloe ran her hand slowly down his stomach. Her inquisitive fingers stopped just short of the waistband of his jeans. Flicking the brass button with her nails, she smirked and looked side ways at him. Clark's eyebrows went into his hairline. "Nice stuff. I can see why Lex likes it so much." 

Feeling in the mood to be generous and knowing her tastes, Clark smirked back. After what he'd put her though, she deserved an illicit treat. For her, he could swallow his embarrassment. "I'm nothing." Clark laughed. "You should see him, Chloe. Naked, he's absolutely beautiful. Long, hard and oh, my god...sleek. Lex moves like nothing I've ever seen. Sometimes, he makes me forget how to breathe." 

"Is he a passionate lover?" 

"Yeah, but he hates it." 

"What? He hates being passionate?" Chloe asked obviously puzzled and Clark considered that. 

"In a way, I guess. Lex hates losing control. Even during sex. It takes a lot before he lets go. When we make love, he always starts off slow and careful. It drives me crazy." 

"So all isn't blissful in Luthorland. Lex isn't the perfect lay. Hmm, that's comforting." 

Clark looked down his nose to chastise her but when he saw her blue eyes flashing and the small smile curving her lips he knew she wasn't being vindictive. She was being the woman she was, forgiving, kind and quick witted. She'd may be hurting but she was dealing remarkably well. The indestructible Chloe Sullivan had once again risen above. Clark wasn't really surprised. With her quirky hair and her own sense of what was normal, she did it all the time. Loving the warm feel of her body against his, he gave her a squeeze. There was only one thing better than this. 

"He _is_ the perfect lay, Chloe. Don't get that wrong. Once he's revved up, he's an animal. He blows my brains out every time." 

"Only because you love him. You're a nice guy, Clark. You forgive a lot." 

"Not because. He is really, really good." 

"Do you top?" 

"What?" 

"You know what I'm talking about. Have you done it to him?" 

"Yeah, once." Clark said slowly, looking and not finding Lex through the throng of bodies. He wasn't sure he should have answered. 

"That's all? Only once? You were together for six months and you only fucked him once?" 

"Holy geez, Chloe!" 

"Don't 'geez' me, Clark Kent. I'm sitting in your lap and you've just told me you're lover's a great lay. It's too late to be modest." 

"Yeah, but really, Chloe..." 

"Clark..." 

"Okay, okay. Pete would hate to hear this or...well, maybe not and Lex would freak if he knew I was telling you, but yeah, I've only topped once." Clark nervously scanned the crowd for his lover again. "It was good, a different kind of good but I prefer being on the bottom. I only switched because I thought he might like the change. It was sort of a Christmas present," he said quietly when his search came up empty 

"So how did he do? Did he lose the famous 'Luthor' cool faster when you topped?" 

"Uhh...I suppose so. But he didn't really have a lot of choice. I was pretty determined and it was a special occasion. I don't know, Chloe. I haven't really given it a lot of thought." 

"Maybe you should." 

"Why? I like the sex how it is." Clark frowned. "How it was." 

"Man against man or maybe I should say, man into man, whatever. You have to meet him as an equal if you ever want this thing with Lex to last. Nothing else is right. Top or bottom, you can't hold back and more importantly, neither can he. It isn't healthy. You have to get to him to open up." 

"What?" he laughed. "Now you're telling me how to fuck?" 

"Yeah, I'm telling you how to fuck. It's damn good advice and that's what friends are for. If you want me to watch and give pointers, I'm available." 

"You wouldn't." 

"I might, Clark Kent." She raised her hands and twisted her fingers into his hair. With a slight tug she brought his head down. "So don't push it,' Chloe said into his face. Clark parted his lips and tilted his head. When he leaned forward, Chloe didn't lean back. The kiss was inevitable after that. 

It wasn't deep. It didn't ignite the fire in his belly like Lex's kisses did. But it was good. It had been so long since Clark had felt this close to anyone, he wasn't able to do anything but sink into it. It was warm and made him feel wanted if not desired. Although, it would only take a bit of tongue and shifting of his hips to change that. He started to turn... 

"Clark!" 

His whole body going into a spasm, Clark jerked at the sound of that voice. Chloe bounced off his lap. Lips bruised and hair ruffled from kissing, he looked up at the man who'd called him out. Guilt ruled his senses. He barely registered Chloe giving her apologies, grabbing her shoes from underneath the table and skittering away. Looking up into the face of his accuser, Clark's cheeks burned red. 

"Hi, Dad." 

* * *

"Don't leave. There has to be an explanation." 

"I know there is. Forgive me for not wanting to stay to hear it." 

"Lex, don't go." Martha pushed him into the alcove between the stairs to his little used office and the public bathroom. In the tight, dark corner, nobody could see them and they were unable to see anybody, including Clark and Chloe. 

Caught, Lex looked down at her in defeat. "Martha, you're son just made a fool of me in front of the whole town. Don't ask me to stay. I can't." 

"You can't leave yet." 

Damn her all to hell for not letting go of his sleeve. As long as Martha held him, he would do nothing aggressive to break away. He was incapable of hurting her. 

Martha's free hand came around, the one not holding his wrist immobile with a feather light touch, and clutched at the collar of his jacket. Oh, great. Now he was twice bound. The yellow rose in his lapel crumbled to the floor. At its destruction, Lex fought the urge to cry. His feelings were on the knife's edge. It was a battle not to scream at the slightest infraction no matter how superficial. He was raw and open. Seeing the yellow petals fall to the floor hurt more than they should. Helpless to hide his feelings, he looked up at Martha with pleading eyes. She had no idea what she was doing by making him stay. 

"Please, he doesn't want me. This is pointless. Let me go." 

"You have to hear his side." 

"He was kissing Chloe. There is no side I care to hear." 

"You're the only one he loves." 

"You can't know that." 

"Between you, me, Jonathon, _the cows_ and the fence posts, I most certainly do." 

Lex tugged gently at his pink manicured bonds. With a soft lilt to her head, Martha gave him a kind, indulgent look but did not let go. 

"Stop it, Lex. You're staying. You're going to talk to him. You're going to work this out." 

"Why?" 

"Do you really have to ask that?" she said and out came the Kentian glare. 

"Yes, I do." Lex replied trying very hard not to duck his head. He didn't know which was more terrible, his father's leer or Martha's determined stare. For different reasons neither was easy to endure. "Please, don't worry," he said quickly hoping to stop her from tearing him to pieces with her eyes. Clark's laser vision couldn't be any worse. "Your son has everything now. My money. My influence. And the _girl_. He's safe, Martha. No one will ever know who and what he is. I'll do everything in my power to make sure of that. So, please, please, please. Let me go." With his the final plea, Lex knocked his head back against the door to his office in frustration. It hurt, but only for a second before the hand on his lapel came up to tenderly rub the sore spot. The small fingers of Martha's other hand still held his wrist. He was being treated well but was no less imprisoned. 

"Tell me how you got here tonight, Lex.." Martha asked softly. "Tell me about the roses." 

"They're flowers," he said flatly. 

"No. To you, they're more than that." 

"Don't do this...I can't..." Lex squeezed his eyes shut so he didn't have to look her. The care on Martha's face was too apparent. It made him care and he didn't want to. 

"You feel too much for Clark to leave him again." 

"This time it isn't about _my_ leaving." 

"No?" She stopped petting his head and placed both hands around his wrist. Her thumbs went to his pulse point and rubbed. "You went days without seeing him. Did you miss him, Lex? Did you have trouble sleeping at night? And how did you get through the day? Tell me how you felt." 

Lex slowly lifted his lashes. "Besides it being none of your business, I know what you're doing." 

"Do you?" 

"You want me to say I'm in love with him. Well, fine. I am. I love him. I love Clark. That's not news to you. You've always known how I felt about your son so don't stand there and fucking patronize me." 

"If you feel that way, then why are you putting up with me?" 

"You're holding my wrist. I can't move." 

"And if I let you go?" 

"I'll leave." 

"Without speaking to him?" 

"There's little point. Clark has no sense of logic. Hormonal teenagers seldom do." 

"So like last time, you'll conveniently forget he is the _man_ you love and dismiss him out of hand like child." 

"Clark isn't a child. I am aware of that. He's a young man with a healthy but mostly untried libido. So it's not surprising he thinks with his dick. He did that with me and he's about to do that with Chloe if hasn't already." Lex paused and squinted at her, trying for his own brand of frightening glare. "And stop it. You're doing it again." 

Unperturbed by his attempt at visual browbeating, Martha nodded thoughtfully, a small smile playing with her lips. "Patronizing you...ah, yes." 

"And attempting to manipulate me. Neither will help. No matter how much you want it to." 

"You're right. This isn't about what I want. It's about what Clark wants. Have you ever stopped to consider that?" 

"Yes, and in the last few minutes that exercise hasn't been particularly pleasant. It's obvious he has feelings for Chloe. Good ones. Healthy ones. You saw that tonight. And I saw that tonight. Why are you fighting this, Martha? Are you afraid I'll withdraw my support? I told you I won't. He still has everything I do. If this about who he is, please know Clark doesn't have to marry me to be safe. He can have Chloe. I won't tell." 

Feeling fragile and brittle after his speech, Lex sunk back against the door of his office. It was locked with an electronic pad. He repeated the code over and over again in his head. It was only four digits to sanctuary. Four buttons to a place he could curl up and die. Four small clicks and he could let down the walls and crumble. If only Martha would let go of his wrist... 

"Jonathon said you can't believe Clark loves you. That you don't think yourself worthy. I found that hard to digest at the time but maybe not now. Is it true, Lex?" 

"Yes." Anything. "Now please, Martha. Let me go." 

"You're wrong. You are worthy." 

Enough was enough. He had his limits. Lex had tried to reason with her but couldn't take anymore of her circular diatribe. Trashing his vaulted self appointed honour with a flex of his bicep, he yanked his hand away from Martha's gentle grasp. 

"Don't you get it?" he yelled not giving a mutant rat's ass that Lana could probably hear him from behind the coffee bar. "Clark's with her because I am not fucking worthy! I'm a cold hearted prick and he has no earthly reason to want me!" he finished in a high voice, shrieking more than screaming into her startled face. He was angry. Martha meant well. He knew that. He truly did. But she had no right to suppose how he felt and she certainly had no right to suppose what Clark wanted. 

"Earthly? Perhaps not." Martha said, rubbing her wrist but not backing away. A crowd had gathered in the hallway but the venerable Mrs Kent hadn't moved one inch. "I know he loves you," she said her blue eyes flashing and her shoulder's set. "That's reason enough for anyone." 

Lex wanted to believe, she made quite the convincing display but there was the evidence to consider. 

With his own eyes he had seen Clark pull Chloe into his lap and kiss her. From experience, he knew how Clark's body moved. He knew what emotions fueled it. His lover had touched the young woman with gentle care. His hands on her body meant something. The kiss was not polite gesture. Clark had been enjoying it. He had wanted it. Across the room Lex had felt his need. The depth of it had taken his breath away. Until that moment, Lex had thought only he was capable of evoking such passion from his lover. Discovering he was not, had effectively shattered his world. Pride goeth before the fall. 

Green rocks, his father's hate, and Clark's alien heritage had not destroyed him. But one kiss had strength over all those hardships. Seeing his lover's lips on another's had flattened him. He was broken and had no desire to explain the gory details to his friend and lover's mother. 

Putting his back to her, he turned and punched the access code into the lock. The door clicked opened and Lex shoved it wide. Two feet in, he spun and closed it, feeling safe when he heard the magnetics click in place. It wouldn't stop Clark should he want in but Martha, with her misguided truth was now effectively barred on the other side. 

Finally alone, Lex wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He had options, raging, screaming, breaking office supplies and crying. Climbing the narrow staircase and falling in a heap before his desk, he nearly settled on the last one. 

Weeping like a child wasn't very Luthor like and he realized, neither was giving up. It was one of the few lessons his father taught him that didn't leave a bad taste in the back of his mouth. Putting the past into practice, he focused the shame of his humiliation into something more palatable. It didn't take long. Thinking of a time before Clark came back faster than he imagined. Fortified, Lex stood and slapped the dust from his trousers. 

He may feel like shit, but he would be damned if he'd be treated that way. _He was a fucking Luthor._ No, dammit. He was _Lex_ Luthor. Nobody had the right to break his heart. Not even the man that showed him he had one. 

On the other hand, now that he'd hit bottom there was no where to go but up. He couldn't feel any worse so he'd might as well take a shot at feeling better. Or at least a shot at Clark. Lex leaned back against his desk and thought about that. A jagged smile he would have found hauntingly familiar formed on his lips. 

Hitting Clark? 

Yeah, that would make him feel better. 

Much. 

Too bad he'd break his hand doing it. No, there was another, less painful way of saving face. 

Curling his bottom lip over his teeth and biting into place, Lex pushed off the desk and headed back downstairs. 

* * *

"Stupid?" 

"Son, stupid doesn't even begin to describe what you just did." 

They were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the battered couch, speaking quietly, with more calm than either of them felt. Like his father, Clark was rigid, back straight, legs bent at a perfect ninety degree angle and feet firmly planted on the ground. Both stared straight ahead not seeing into the throng of people drinking coffee and celebrating the Talon's two year anniversary. Clark squeezed his knees and took a deep breath. 

"What do I do now?" 

"Not a clue." 

Deep shit. He was in deep, deep shit. 

"Will apologizing work?" 

"In my experience when you screw up this bad...no." 

"Right. I'm in big trouble then." 

"Yep." 

"Right. Trouble. Right." 

"You could beg." 

"That works?" 

"No." 

"Right!" Clark squeaked, almost jolting upright from the couch. 

At the end of his father's less than helpful answer, Clark had heard Lex screaming at what he supposed was his mother. She wasn't here. But his father was. So it figured. 

The loud and biting words weren't as distinguishable to his father's human ears as they were to Clark's alien ones but it obvious from the way his body stiffened that the older man caught enough to know that Lex was not in the best of moods. 

"You still love him?" his father asked suddenly after the tempest died down. Clark broke statue mode to look at him. To his surprise, his dad was looking back. 

"Yeah." Clark said honestly with a shrug of his shoulders. 

"And you still want to do..." His father fumbled with his hand and blushed. Clark was unnaturally fascinated. "Ah...stuff with him?" 

"Stuff? What...oh. Do I still want to have sex with him?" 

"Yeah," his father blurted and then said quickly, "I mean this kissing thing with Chloe doesn't mean you've changed, has it?" 

"No, Dad. It doesn't work that way." 

"Still gay?" 

"Still gay." Clark affirmed shortly. There wasn't anything more he could add that would make a spit of difference. 

"Just checking, son. Just checking." 

"Oh, okay. Right then." 

"Right." Jonathon nodded and then turned his head back to the crowd. "So that's it." 

"It?" Clark asked his father's profile, totally lost. He was too whacked at being caught with Chloe in his lap to follow the train of thought coming from the man sitting beside him so quiet and still. 

Clark had never felt so wrong before and didn't know quite how to deal with it. Even when he did break the rules-which he did often if you asked the local sheriff--he did so with conviction, without this sense of mind numbing guilt. He couldn't jump to conclusions, fill in pregnant pauses, _read minds_. He couldn't grasp what his father was trying to say with his spare words. 

Clark was stunned stupid. 

"You have to give in." His father let out a long drawn out breath before speaking again. "Do anything and everything Lex Luthor wants, Clark." 

Clark's eyebrows shot up. "Dad?" In a million, trillion years, Clark would have never imagined his father him telling him to obey a Luthor. The man had come a long way these last months, Clark still remembered the unexpected gift of condoms but total surrender? 

"And do it with a smile if you want him to forgive you." Grim faced, his father turned to him. "Do you understand me, son? You don't get that many chances at happiness. They're rare and only if you're very lucky, you catch a break and get one. This _is_ your chance, Clark. Don't blow it." 

With his jaw working uselessly, Clark wracked his brain for an answer that would do his father proud. At a loss, he was reduced to shaking his head vigorously and smiling like he'd just been told he'd won the state lottery. His father grinned back and then pulled him in for a much needed, two armed hug. 

"Move that tight ass, Clark Kent. You've had enough coffee for one night. We're going home." 

Clark pulled away from his father's embrace and blinked. "Lex?" 

Clad elegantly in a deep blue suit, his lover stood impatiently rocking on his heels, his hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers, and glaring at him. The rest of his face was an impassive mask. Only the eyes told how furious he was. Their blue gray depths were cold and as hard as steel. 

Oh, god. He was scary. 

And god, oh god. He was so incredibly sexy, Clark's mouth watered just looking at him. Three weeks was way too long to see something this fine in any mood. 

"Do I need to tell you twice, farm boy?" Lex asked, his voice low, throaty and so deadly that anyone that may have been eavesdropping discreetly moved away. 

His father grabbed his jacket from where it lay draped over the arm of the couch and pushed it into his hands. "Go," he whispered. 

His heart thrumming in his chest, Clark stood and donned his coat. "I'm ready, Lex." he said, rounding his shoulders and lowering his eyes trying to look appropriately docile. It wasn't hard. 

"Fuck, you're sweet," Lex growled before twisting his fingers into the hair at Clark's nape and jerking him down for a rough kiss. 

Shocked at his lover's audacity, Clark's jaw dropped. Its laxed position gave Lex the opportunity to shove his tongue between his lips. With his free hand, his usually conservative lover, the one who abhorred flamboyant displays in bed and out of it, tugged at the waist of his jeans to yank him closer. Opened mouth and hip to hip, the kiss turned obscene. The gentle warmth of Chloe's lips fast became a far memory for everyone in the room. When Lex began to fuck his mouth in short stabs with his tongue, Clark guessed that was sort of the point. Not that he cared. 

When Clark lifted his hands to touch the beautifully bald head, Lex pulled back leaving him desperate with wanting. 

His lover's coral lips were bruised to a russet red. A jet of pre-come wet his boxers. Clark wanted to kiss them again to taste the difference. Absolutely needed to but Lex didn't let him. Strong and sure, Lex ran his hands down Clark's arms to his elbows to keep him one infuriatingly long step away. Remembering he had the strength to force him was the only thing that kept him from not. 

"Do you want to come with me, sunshine?" Lex asked, his voice a deep rumble. The steel in his gray eyes had become molten. 

"Yeah, Lex. All over you," Clark said in what he hoped was a whisper. People were listening. Oh, geez. His _father_ was listening. 

Lex laughed loudly and grabbed his hand. "Good boy." 

Thinking there was nothing funny about him panting like a dog in front of an audience, Clark twisted his hips to adjust his swollen package and followed head down, hiding a shy but happy smile. 

* * *

The Humvee was comfortably warm before Lex thawed enough to speak. Neither of them had said a word since leaving the Smallville city limits ten minutes ago. 

"Tell me. Are you fucking Chloe?" he asked, the question dropping between them a like a lead balloon. Lex didn't look at his lover but kept his eyes on the snow covered road and both hands clutching the wheel so hard his knuckles ached. The big yellow car was a three speed automatic. Unlike the Ferrari and he didn't need a free hand to shift. 

"Nice language." Clark cracked and then, "No." 

"It didn't appear that way." Lex snapped, the anger welling in his gut boiling up. 

"It wasn't supposed to go that far." Lex heard Clark sigh. "I was stupid. I'm sorry, Lex." 

Lex tore his eyes from the windshield to look at his lover. For safety reasons, the glance was brief but the interior was too dark to catch much more than shadows. He was unable to see the expression on Clark's face. For better look, he would have to pull over. 

Easing his foot off the gas, Lex pressed the brake gently and maneuvered the all terrain vehicle to the side of the road. The high drifts were no problem for its military class tires. The damn things were bullet proof. Kansas snow was a cakewalk. 

Parked in the middle of nowhere, Lex undid his seatbelt and turned to Clark. The young man was staring down at the twist of fingers in his lap, a perfect picture of guilt. He still wore his harness. 

"What exactly are you sorry about, Clark?" Lex asked. 

His focus remaining downward, Clark emitted something between a laugh and a snort. "You want a list?" 

No, Lex most definitely didn't. He was afraid of being one of the main bullet points. Anger and bruised ego withstanding, he didn't want proof positive Clark regretted being with him. He'd seen it. He had no reason to hear it. 

"All right. A different question. Do you want time to explore your feelings with Chloe?" 

"There's nothing to explore. I know how I feel about her." 

"You enjoyed kissing her." Lex said with calm rationality. It was forced kicking and screaming between gritted teeth but he'd got it out. Lex didn't want his rage at being thrown over for a woman to degrade this conversation into an argument. He didn't have the emotional control for a screaming match. He'd lose hands down. In this instance, Clark was the one with edge. His sweet, home grown farm boy was used to wearing his heart on his sleeve. He'd been fortunate to have the soft toothed Martha as a teacher not Lionel. 

Clark shifted his large body in his seat making the soft tan leather squeak. Lex tried hard not to imagine what muscles were required to flex for the movement. 

"Yes, Lex. " Clark said calmly. "I love her. Of course I liked kissing her." 

Lex slammed his rationality and his fist into the dashboard. Both shattered. Squeezing his eyes to the sides of his nose, he cradled his damaged hand to his chest. 

"Fuck, oh, fuck," he hissed, sniffing back tears that came easier than they should have. 

"Lex!" 

Before he could say piss off, Clark had unsnapped his seatbelt and was pulling gently at his wrist. Lex had visions of Martha at the Talon and tried to shy away. 

"Stop being a baby, Lex and let me see." Clark's admonition was gentle as his touch. Looking like an angel, his big eyes were kind and his full over-red mouth was curved in a placid smile. 

With a glare, Lex proffered his damaged left fist before he kissed him. 

Cradling his hand like a newborn kitten, Clark's face drew in as he focused. Lex tried to ignore the tremors of something other than pain that lanced up and down his arm as alien lover examined him with his x-ray vision. It should have struck him as weird but didn't. 

"The pinky's broken," Clark reported after a moment perusal. 

"No, shit," Lex spat. 

Clark big fingers caressed the underside of his hand, ghosting his palm with light soothing strokes. The tremors in his arm spread across his chest and went southwards over the hills and valleys of his trembling stomach. Lex squirmed in his bucket seat. 

"Does it hurt bad?" Clark asked softly. 

"What?" 

"Your finger?" Clark's breath brushed Lex's cheek. When had the boy gotten so close? 

"Oh." Lex licked his lips and whispered, "Not much." 

"Good. I don't like it when you hurt." 

"Yeah..." Lex said against Clark's mouth before falling into it. With a deep throated moan, and a cupped palm to the back of Lex's head, Clark caught him. 

Clark's kiss was surprisingly savage. The boy's hunger evident as Lex's lips were sucked and mercilessly bitten. Sitting in the dark cab of the Humvee, Lex was quickly becoming undone by sheer volume of his lover's lust. 

Anger, pain and Chloe Sullivan were forgotten as he arched up into molten core of his alien love. When a hot tongue pushed between his lips, Lex laid himself bare, relaxing his jaw and greedily welcomed it in with his own. 

Oh, sweet heaven he had missed this. He wanted to be eaten up by this. He wanted to submerge himself and die in this. 

Kissing Clark Kent was one of the greater pleasures in life that money could not buy and Lionel could not subvert. It was priceless and pure. A prize he had almost foolishly given up. 

When his boy wonder broke away from his mouth to lick across his cheek and kiss gently at the pulse point beside his right eye, Lex almost cried. 

"I want you, Lex." Clark said into his temple. His big hands were traveling up and down Lex's sides at a frantic pace. The tourmaline buttons of Lex's expensive jacket popped off in sympathy. "I need you to fuck me." 

"Christ, Clark. Here? The Humvee has bucket seats." Lex said realizing at once how asinine his near refusal was. Obviously love, lust and logic did not go hand in hand. 

Clark stopped pawing him and looked around the adjustable headrest beneath Lex's neck. "In the back? Yeah, that will work. In the back." Clark said in a rush and then looked back down at Lex. A hard Kentian gaze and a wide smile held Lex breathless. "You are going to fuck me in the back seat." 

"No." 

Christ, did he just say that? Was he out of his fucking mind? 

Clark's eyebrows shot up and froze. "No?" 

"No." His traitorous mouth said again. It took the hurt look on Clark face for the tumblers of his brain to click into place and fall in line with the rest of his body. Lex snagged the shirt collar of his crestfallen lover with his good hand. "No, Clark Kent. I'm yours. You are going to fuck me." 

* * *

"Lube? Oh, Christ, Clark. We need lube. I love you but I'm not letting you take me dry." 

They were on their knees facing each other naked in the back of the Humvee. Their clothes were in jumbled mess on the floor behind the front bucket seats. The windows had been fogged up by their labored breathing and Lex had said he loved him. Four really, really good things. Lex's panic was a bad thing. 

"I have some in my jacket." Clark said sheepishly as he leaned down and retrieved a small plastic vial from his pocket. He hadn't been sure how this evening was going to end. Flirting with Chloe on Pete's advice had not been a sure fire way of getting his lover back but he had been hopeful. 

Lex smiled, his gray eyes bright and sparkly. "Holy Monty Python, Clark! I love you. Do you know that?" 

"Yeah, Lex. That's one of the good things." 

The grin on Lex's face got wider. "Would sticking your dick up my ass be another? Cause in my books, that would be a fantastic thing." 

"Yeah." Clark agreed and was surprised to discover he meant it. 

In what seemed like another reality he distinctly remembered telling Chloe he preferred having Lex top. Sitting here now with a vial of oil in his hand and having Lex panting for him to fuck him, made Clark think he might have been a little too hasty in that assessment. 

What it came down to was that any position with Lex was hot. Topping might mean missing the satisfied burn of his mate's semen deep in bowels but Clark wouldn't trade that for the heat he saw smoldering in the man's eyes now. Lex's raw desire to be fucked made him sweat in ways he didn't know his alien body could. His cock was damp and his balls were practically dripping with moisture. Soon, the small tube in hand would be a mute point. 

"Tell me again." Clark begged, his voice cracking on the last word. 

Moving with grace, even one handed, Lex lowered himself down to lie flat on his back on the leather seats. He wrapped his long supple legs around the back of Clark's knees. "Fuck me," Lex grounded out, consonants hard and rigid. 

His joints assailed with a previously unknown weakness, Clark fell between Lex's opened legs and kissed him hard. He loved this thin scarred mouth, snide comments, snarky observations, constant cursing and all. He tasted it thoroughly before leaning to one side and propping himself up on one elbow. Latching his lips to the pale skin of Lex's throat just above his collarbone, he popped the lid of the lube and squeezed. From the top and the sides a thick viscous substance coated his fingers. Clark placed the cracked container in the coffee holder in the car door for later reference. 

With one hand cupping Lex's neck and softly rubbing the hard nub at the base, Clark slipped the other under Lex's pretty red furred balls. Mindful of his strength, Clark ran light fingers over the puckered opening behind. Lex moaned and bucked up under touch. 

"Please, sunshine, please..." 

Lifting his mouth from the deep red welt on Lex's neck, Clark placed his cheek on the panting man's chest to see what his fingers were doing. He'd only prepared Lex once for fucking and as he recalled, not very well. He'd been more preoccupied with getting his dick in Lex than savoring the rite of preparation. Clark wanted to do better this time. And he wanted to watch. 

The sight of Lex's long elegant cock curled up from a sparse thatch of red almost broke his concentration. He rubbed his aching dick against Lex's hip and moaned. 

"You're perfect...so perfect...I want to fuck you...shove my cock inside you..." 

A mangled hand, swollen to the wrist came up to his lips. Clark kissed the bruised knuckles lightly. 

"Christ, Clark. Stop talking." Lex lifted his head from the Humvee's leather seat and rasped. "You'll make me spill." 

"No, Lex. Not yet." 

"Then stop fucking around and hurry Clark..." The pristine bald head glazed with sweat dropped back down with a thump. "Hurry...oh, Christ...hurry..." 

Taking his lover's plea to heart, Clark shoved two fingers into him. Lex bore down on them with a strangled cry. Clark pushed deeper hoping to hear more. He loved his lover's screams. 

"Oh...damn. That's good, now spread them...yeah...so thick...so full. Now fuck me with them, Clark...oh, god...yeah...fuck me." 

Honouring father's advice in his own way to give Lex anything and everything he wanted, Clark did as he was bid and was instantly rewarded for his obedience. Seeing the tightly controlled Lex Luthor whip his head back and forth in the throes of unchained sexual ecstasy was a gift beyond measure. No one ever saw this. This was his. 

Clark was fascinated watching Lex writhe on his hand and for a few moments, reveled in it but eventually a stronger interest arose. His dick where it lay hard and uncommonly wet against Lex's hip became jealous of his fingers. 

Lex seemed ready, the head of Lex's cock was wet and glistening but Clark added a third finger to be sure. He fucked Lex with his fingers until the man was moaning steadily. At last he pulled out his busy digits, slathered more lubricant on his cock from the broken vial in the door, and lifted Lex's legs over his shoulders. He paused just in case there were any last-minute qualms, although if Lex changed his mind at this stage Clark would most likely die of sexual frustration and longing. Rolling around in green meteorites while singing the praises of Luthorcorp would be more pleasant. 

"Oh, Christ, Clark. Do it. Do it. Do it!" 

On the last exclamation, Clark shoved pass the tight ring of muscle and shot home. He leaned over Lex afraid to move. He hadn't meant to go this deep in the first thrust but the silky sleeve of Lex's ass had seemed to suck him in. Clark needed a moment to adjust or he would blow his load with the next flex of his hips. 

"You okay?" Lex asked with more calm than was fair. 

"No. I'm in trouble." Clark squeezed his eyes shut. "I can't move, Lex." 

"You can't...oh, god. No...no, okay. It's all right. It's all right, sunshine. You don't have to. Just put your hand on my dick and jerk me off. When I come, you come. Understand?" 

Clark lifted a shaky hand to touch Lex's straining erection. He closed his fingers over it. "Do you promise to come quick?" 

"It will be the easiest promise I ever made, farm boy. My orgasm it sitting on my back teeth as it is." 

His back taut and locked in place, Clark began to stroke his lover's cock. Lex screamed and spurted almost immediately. 

"Now fuck me, Clark. Oh, Christ in hell! Move! Fuck me _hard_!" 

Grabbing on to the Humvee's door handle with both hands, Clark shoved deeper into his lover. The force of his orgasm was overwhelming. He felt it in his stomach, his spine and in a fiery explosion at the base of his balls. Babbling what he sure was nonsense and hearing in the most outer portions of his brain the cracking of plastic, Clark rammed his cock into Lex's ass like it was the best and worst place he wanted to be. Lex screamed again, the sound reverberating in the small confines of the car's cab and sprayed the space between their bodies with hot, sticky wetness. He'd kept his promise. Clark never doubted he would. 

Unable to help himself, Clark collapsed full force a top Lex's long delicate body like a sack of frozen fertilizer. He'd apologized three times in head before pulling his limp cock out of him and slipping his weight to the side. In an instant Lex was cuddled up to his chest and pressing small kisses to his mouth. Whatever apology he wanted to make was cut off by those soft persistent lips. Clark's heart, soul and body melted into them. They had just fucked and now they were making love. When Lex's mouth released him, 'I love you' was the first thing Clark said. 

"I love you too, sunshine but sometimes I wish I didn't." 

"I understand. It's not easy loving an alien." 

"No. The alien bit I can handle. It's the eighteen year old boy that repeatedly causes me grief." 

Clark sat up and hovered over Lex. With a light push to his shoulder, he had the man back flat on his back. "Maybe I should have told you this before, but I'm gay, Lex." 

"Christ, Clark, I should hope so or my ass is going to suffer a major identity crisis." With a chuckle, Lex tried to roll back into his chest but Clark's spread fingers didn't let him. When Lex shivered, Clark snagged his coat from the floor and quickly covered his upper torso while still holding him firm. He had something to say and didn't want to yell over the sound of his lover's chattering teeth. 

"Don't make fun." Clark said once his charge was sufficiently warm. "I mean it, Lex. I'm not bi-sexual like you. You need to know that I'm absolutely, positively gay. The centerfolds in Playboy don't do it for me. However, the just the smell of the boy's locker room after a big game gives me a stiffy." 

Under their makeshift blanket, Clark felt Lex's ribcage hitch and then, shudder. 

"You're saying you don't want to fuck Chloe?" Lex asked quietly and then bit fiercely at his bottom lip. Clark rubbed it with the pad of his thumb until he let it go. 

"I want to hold her." Running a gentle hand down his face, Clark looked deep into Lex's eyes. He wanted to reach him. He needed Lex to understand. "I want touch her. Feel good in her arms but I don't want what we just had. That kind of passion belongs only to you, Lex." 

With a great intake of breath, Lex's lashes fell close. The pale auburn hairs were stuck together in wet spikes when they flickered back up a moment later. "Lionel demanded I marry you. I acquiesced." Lex said with a tight edge to his voice. 

"Works for me." Clark quipped. He didn't get why their union was suddenly all right with the senior Luthor but if Lex didn't have a problem with it, he wouldn't either. Giddy with trust, Clark smiled and pulled up his left hand. "I've still got the ring. I never took it off." 

"You've should have. I behaved abominably. Your mother said I treated you like a child. She was right." 

"Yeah, you were a insensitive dick but you didn't mean to be." 

"Doesn't matter. You should have moved on and forgotten me." 

Clark kissed Lex's mouth softly and quoted against his lips a poem he received well before he fully understood it. 

*"A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my mouth forever....I am in love with it."* 

Nose to nose, Clark couldn't help but to see the tears that had been threatening in the corners of Lex's eyes finally fall. With a choked sob, Lex hid his wet face in the crook of Clark's arm. 

The delicate verse told a hard truth. 

Clark didn't have the heart of poet like sensitive man who had sent him the beautiful missive at a time when he most needed it, but he did understand it's meaning. It was about finding the best thing in your life and not being able to define it but only knowing that it _was_. 

Yeah, he got that. 

Clark loved Lex for no good reason other than he always had and always would. 

And he was cool with that. He was, according to the poem, in love with that. 

Clark kissed the top of Lex's smooth head and held him closer. 

In the back seat of a big yellow car, in the middle of nowhere with his bear ass hanging out, and holding on for dear life to a skinny white rich guy who thought one day he'd rule the world, he got all that. 

Lex was odd, not near normal and definitely alien. But no matter. So was he. 

And was in love with it all. 

His mother would be ecstatic if she knew. 

**THE END**


End file.
